Principal Little announces staffing cuts at latest SBDM

At the most recent SBDM meeting, Principal Paul Little announced staffing cuts. HC is looking to lose 4.8  staffing positions, which means a total of three actual staff members may be cut. These cuts would staff Henry Clay at 98%,  meaning HC would only be prepared to provide staffing for 98% of the students that are projected to enroll.

SBDM member Chris Gilligan wrote in an email, “The teacher ratio is 31 – 1. So HC will get back another teacher for every 31 additional students that enroll, after school starts next year.”

The school hopes enough students will enroll in order to enable hiring back teachers.

In the same email Gilligan wrote, “Mr. Little said he would hire back, in order, PE, Art, Music, science, and then math.”

This created some disagreement. Members of the Math Department feel as though math teachers should take a higher priority. They contested that because all students take math class for four years, math teachers should be a priority.    

“Math and English see all students all four years,” HC Math teacher Sarah Zehnder, “so I feel we should have some of the highest staffing numbers.”

It appears part of the problem lies in the number of students that are projected to be enrolled next year and how that number affects the amount of staff hired.

“Central Office staffs high schools at 98% of next year’s projected enrollment which for HC is projected to be 2,053.” Gilligan wrote, “Infinite Campus projects, however, an estimated enrollment of 2,169.”

While staffing cuts are never desired, these changes were made in order to cause the least damage to the school. Staffing cuts are never the choice of the school but he SBDM is working to minimize change.

“This [plan] appears to do the least damage,” Gilligan wrote, “[as well as] the most flexibility and ability to grow/rehire.”