City school job cuts will affect services

Staff reductions in the Lynchburg City Schools will affect school services including academic coaching for high school athletes, middle school English and mathematics departments and even custodians, about a dozen of whom will lose jobs.

Information released by the school administration Tuesday provides details kept confidential during operating budget discussions, prior to final decisions and notification of staff.

This month’s reduction in force eliminates the equivalent of about 63 full-time positions next school year, including teachers, administrators and other staff.

High school cuts include secretaries, guidance counselors, vocational technology teachers and a handful of other positions, but school officials generally spared arts jobs and teachers in core required academic subjects like English, science, social studies and mathematics.

Superintendent Paul McKendrick said that the division will scale back staffing of the Play it Smart program, employing the equivalent of one, rather than two, full-time academic coaches for high school athletes. This year and last the division received start-up funding money from the national Play it Smart Foundation, which will not be available in the future.

McKendrick said he wants to keep a scaled-back version of the academic coaching program in tough economic times rather than scrap it entirely, because he believes it has benefited athletes at the high schools and turned their focus toward college and academics.

School board member Charlie White, who helped to bring the program to Lynchburg before he became a school board member, said that though having a coach for each school is great, in most communities Play it Smart school coaches are part-time. Some of the financial support for the program has come from private sources outside the schools.

“I think it says a lot that we were able to maintain the program at all,” White said. “It’s a reflection on how successful the program has been … It’s indicative of the level of community support.”

The Play it Smart program received popular support during public input forums held before school budget deliberations began, along with other programs such as high school band and drama.

At the middle school level, four teaching positions will be lost in English/language arts and four in mathematics, according to information provided by the school division. McKendrick said that he and other school officials felt they could cut English teachers because fewer middle school students need to take remedial classes in reading and writing, in addition to regular English courses.

Other middle school teacher cuts include a physical education teacher, a social studies teacher and two middle school alternative education teachers.

At the elementary schools, five regular classroom teacher positions have been eliminated, along with the same number of teachers’ assistants. McKendrick said he and other school officials cut arts teachers for the division’s two elementary schools for innovation, which he said have enjoyed a lower student/teacher ratio than other schools in the division.

Custodians make up the largest category of the reduction-in-force list. School administration officials are reorganizing the custodial force into crews, which will work together to clean floors in shifts.

“It’s not that a building will be dirty,” McKendrick said, “(but) the thought of us cleaning every classroom every evening is not something we will be able to do next year.”

In general, McKendrick called the reduction in force decisions “gut-wrenching.” He said he’s not ready to speculate what the combined effect of this year’s and last year’s job cuts will be on the school division.

“Realistically, look … you are not going to get the same level of service,” McKendrick said, though he added that he hopes the commitment and creativity of the Lynchburg City Schools staff can help to make up for the losses going forward.