ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST PARISH, La. — In St. John The Baptist Parish, staffing cuts are expected to happen within the school district.
Thursday night the school board voted to authorize the superintendent to come up with a plan to reduce expenses which includes staffing. How that translates to what positions could be cut hasn’t been determined yet. This comes as the district faces a significant financial shortfall, partly because of a low tax base and a shrinking student population.
The board president says the classroom with be one of the last places cuts are made but not everyone trusts that assurance.
“If we don’t do this as a board then we are not taking care of our fiduciary responsibility. This is not saying we’re laying off. This is saying we’re authorizing the superintendent to begin looking at what the staffing looks like, where the numbers are, what the specific needs might be at specific schools and can we make a change in how we’re using the formula,” said district eight board member Debbie Schum.
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“This is a bombshell. Now you’re going to have everybody out here, by tomorrow, everybody in the district is going to say that they’re getting RIF’ed [Reduction In Force] and people are going to be scared. You may loose, nine times out of ten, good people because there’s no way they can determine or know that they’re going to have a job here next year,” said district two board member Albert Burl, III.
The board also voted to authorize the superintendent to put a staffing formula in place to examine student to teacher ratios, which could play a role in determining cuts.