Lynchburg City Schools will hold its annual February job fair Saturday despite a gloomy economic outlook, a hiring freeze and more than 80 positions on the chopping block.
“I think the overall reaction has been one of ‘why are you doing this,’” said Fred Stanbery, director of personnel.
Despite the skepticism, Stanbery said the job fair is needed to recruit quality educators. He said the division will likely have some vacancies this spring, either through attrition, spousal transfers, maternity leave or other life events causing teachers to leave.
Stanbery said he expects Saturday’s event to be bigger than last year’s. Lynchburg holds two job fairs each year, in De-cember and February.
Bedford County Schools also hold an annual job fair, but division spokesman Ryan Edwards said it has been suspended this year. Campbell and Appomattox counties do not hold division-sponsored job fairs.
In Lynchburg, Stanbery said its events are popular because applicants register and are scheduled one-on-one, sit-down interviews with administrators.
“In some cases if we have current openings, where we’ve had resignations, we’ve offered contingent contracts for next year on the spot. That won’t occur this year,” Stanbery said.
Lynchburg, like neighboring divisions, faces staggering budget cuts in the face of the state’s multi-billion dollar deficit. With figures that change daily, Lynchburg schools are charged with trimming at least $4.3 million from its budget.
“We won’t be making any offers until all the snow clears with the budget cuts,” Stanbery said.
Two factors are at play to determine just how many teachers the division will need next year — the federal stimulus package and a proposal by the Virginia House of Delegates for an enhanced retirement incentive plan. With those items on the table, Lynchburg City Schools still has not committed to a budget or a number of position cuts. As recently as last week division officials were mulling the elimination of 31 teaching positions.
Saturday’s job fair, held at Linkhorne Middle School, has almost 100 prospective Lynchburg educators registered to at-tend. Stanbery also said officials will be prepared to take walk-in applicants between 9 and 10:30 a.m.
The three-hour fair is open to potential teachers and includes the participation of all school principals, as well as a large portion of central office staff.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement