OXFORD – Twenty-four instructional staff positions could be cut or reduced to part-time if the Oxford school district’s top administrator has his way. The plan, first proposed to the school board by Superintendent Randy Squier in late February, has both school staff members and the Oxford community up in arms.
“The OTA supports what we call full staffing,” Jonathan Rogers, president of the Oxford Teacher’s Association, told board members last week. “The teachers we have are people to be proud of.”
If approved, Squier’s plan would eliminate nine teaching and three licensed teaching assistant positions. It would also reduce an additional four teaching and five aide positions to part time.
According to Rogers, the teacher’s union was neither consulted about which positions could be affected nor were they present when staff members were informed their jobs could be in jeopardy.
“We were told there would be cuts, but not what or who,” the union leader explained.
Elizabeth Schaefer was one of several teachers who spoke out with concerns about the proposed cuts at last week’s school board meeting.
“There is a great gulf and a great gap between the people who work here and the people we work for,” said Schaefer, who teaches social studies at Oxford High School.
Schaefer called the superintendent’s plan “backwards,” since it calls for cuts in areas which provide the foundation of learning for other content areas. She also expressed concern about how the news was delivered to affected staff members, saying it was done in a “hatchet-man” fashion which had negatively affected morale within the school community.
“The trust issue rises itself once more,” Schaefer said.
While teaching jobs are being cut in all three buildings, Squier’s proposal actually calls for adding two instructional positions in special education and one maintenance position. He also plans to reassign one current administration position to “half-time administrative, half-time instructional.”
This last piece of information caused Kathy Hodge, a special education teacher at Oxford High School, to cry foul. “I’m very confused,” she said. “That’s an addition, not a subtraction.”
“I guess. I didn’t look at it that way,” said Squier.
Hodge said she had other concerns as well, particularly about coverage issues that would arise due to the position cuts. “I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around the schedules,” she said.
According to Hodge, the media center, regular and honor study halls and in-school suspension as areas where supervision would become difficult with the staff reductions proposed by the superintendent.
“It’s a big deal when you don’t have someone there. ... It’s a big impact,” she explained.
Oxford resident and former school board president Dale Leach asked if the administration would be willing to take a salary cut. It would be unfair, he said, for the district’s instructional and support staff to feel “all the pain” in the budget process.
“In my opinion, it would not be unfair to ask for a one-year raise freeze,” said Leach, as he addressed the board of education.
District resident Tom Emerson urged the school board to reconsider the budget proposal in order to avoid taking actions that would be a detriment to the quality of education provided by the district.
“The culture has shifted from one of collaboration and teamwork to an adversarial one,” warned Emerson.
During the meeting, Squier gave a short presentation to answer some of the questions raised by his proposal. In it, he defended the need for the drastic cuts by explaining that in order to “roll over” the current budget, the tax levy would need to increase by 30 percent.
“To return all proposed personnel cuts to the budget would increase the levy to 21 percent,” the superintendent added. His budget proposal, on the other hand, will keep the tax levy increase to under 5 percent, he explained.
In response to questions regarding why no administrative positions were being cut, Squier said that Oxford’s number of administrators is similar to other schools of comparable size.
“Oxford currently has seven administrators,” he said. “Area schools our size have seven or eight administrators.”
While the cuts are painful, he admitted, he maintained that the district would still be able to function with the staff reductions.
“Master draft schedules have been complete,” Squier said, adding that course offerings in core content areas would only differ slightly from what is being currently offered. “There will be some sharing between the middle school and high school if necessary.”
The school board still has two budget meetings scheduled – on March 30 and April 6 – before a final budget is presented to district taxpayers in May.
“We encourage and expect much employee input in this process,” Squier said.
According to Rogers, the teacher’s union has already started gathering information to enable them to do just that.