Smile Politely

Bad time to be an educator at Champaign Unit 4

Caleb Curtiss

If you’re ever going to RIF, next year will be the time to RIF

Unit 4 Chief Financial Officer Gene Logas explaining the overall message sent to him by state legislatures attending a Regional Office of Education meeting earlier this month. 

 

Note: RIF is an acronym for Reduction in Force which is a nice way of saying “layoff.”

I just want to be clear…the current recommendation is no middle school baseball?

A confused Tommy Lockman trying to make sense of the vaguely itemized list of cuts Logas presented to the School Board.

Earlier this evening, after relaying the advise of our elected officials to the Unit 4 School Board, Logas went on to propose cuts to the following:

  • Enrichment teachers
  • Band and string teachers
  • Library aides
  • Spanish teachers
  • Middle school baseball
  • Teacher leader positions
  • High school teaching positions
  • Summer drivers education
  • 6-7th grade world languages
  • Occupational Therapist positions (devoted to disabled students)
  • Occupations Therapist Assistant positions (devoted to disabled students)
  • Reading Recovery teachers
  • Departmental budgets
  • Custodial staff
  • Teacher aides

All in all, it was recommended that Unit 4 rid itself of 24 teachers and 3 administrators with some talk  devoted to combining several management positions with administrative positions. Logas went on to mention that, given the nature of the current 2 million dollar budget shortfall, 75-80% of the in cuts must come from personnel.

The Board will reconvene on February 8th to discuss the matter further.

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