Teachers and staff rehired
Posted on Wednesday, May 7, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/gentry/News/2431/
GENTRY ó Contracts were renewed for teaching and administrative staff in Gentry schools at a special board meeting April 30.
After unanimously approving a fiscal distress improvement plan prepared by school administrators and approved by the Arkansas Department of Education, the school board unanimously approved the renewal of administrative contracts and non-administrative certified employee contracts at the Wednesday meeting, allowing all the rehired employees to advance one experience step on the existing salary schedule of the district.
The rehiring did not include a third grade teacher whose position was eliminated because of a reduction in work force and the federal / curriculum coordinator who resigned to take another position outside the district.
The board decision came just one day before contracts would have been automatically renewed under Arkansas law.
Joan Myers was not rehired as third grade teacher for the coming school year because of a reduction in the work force. Under district policies, Myers was not rehired because she was lowest on the scale of points for time served in the district, areas in which she was certified to teach and level of education.
ì Ms. Myers is a very good teacher, î Dr. Randy Barrett, superintendent of Gentry Schools, said, ìbut she is at the very bottom of the reduction in workforce schedule because she was just hired last August. î
In another money-saving move added to the fiscal distress improvement plan published in the May 30 issue of the Gentry Courier-Journal, the district will not replace Dr. Paul Hine, who recently resigned as the federal / curriculum coordinator for the district to take another position as the superintendent of Benton County School of the Arts in Rogers. The annual savings to the district is estimated to be $ 103, 059.
Another item added to the plan is the districtís applying of funds anticipated from an antitrust lawsuit toward technology purchases, resulting in a savings of $ 85, 715 to the district.
Overall fiscal savings to the district in the fiscal distress improvement plan amount to approximately $ 1, 040, 000, according to Barrett. This amount includes an anticipated $ 404, 511 from the 3. 0 mill increase for dedicated maintenance and operation costs.
ì Itís our goal to get off the (fiscal distress ) list after one year, î Barrett said, indicating the district could apply to be removed from the list next year and that the ADE didnít promise but said the district could possibly be released from the designation next year.
ì We have to be off in two years, î Barrett said. ì If not, (ADE ) would remove me and could replace the school board and take over the district, î he said.