Layoffs Finalized for Savannah Chatham Schools

The Savannah-Chatham County School Board has approved layoffs for the remaining 150 school system employees who are losing jobs due to budget cuts. Those layoffs include paraprofessionals, campus monitors, and secretaries.

The Savannah-Chatham County Public School District has been struggling with a $28 million budget shortfall. On Wednesday, the district staff presented the tentative FY 2010 budget for the school board’s approval.

“Unfortunately, our budget at the current time will not support the number of persons that we’ve had in past years,“ said superintendent Dr. Thomas Lockamy.

But Lockamy says there is hope for those left without a job.
“It’s my anticipation that we will be able to rehire the majority of those persons that were reduced today… We’ve already started rehiring at the high school level. I anticipate within the next couple of weeks to start rehiring at the elementary and middle level,“ explained Lockamy.

As the budget figures were read, District 6 School Board member Lori Brady told the audience they hold officials in Atlanta accountable.

“I strongly urge the Georgia General Assembly to adequately fund public education and currently they’re not… What you’ll hear is the economic trend, and I understand that. The bottom line is this: usually when funding is cut in public education regardless of the circumstances, we never ever get it back,“ said Brady.

The board also tabled a charter application for West Chatham Preparatory Academy, due to some concerns about contract details and wording. The applicants say they’re working with district staff to address these issues.

“The concerns that the school board had was that our financial package was not strong enough and that some of our data needed to be tweaked a little bit,“ said Marc Boese, one of the applicants.

“We went to an area that was in obvious need of a high school, the Pooler, Port Wentworth and Bloomingdale areas, and what it did was it actually restricted our opportunities to involve more kids in the county,“ said Rodney Jenkins, co-applicant for West Chatham Preparatory Academy.

The board will take up the charter application again at their July meeting. If it gets the greenlight, the application will go for state approval, allowing the school to open as planned in August 2010.

Superintendent Lockamy also said after meeting with architects for the new Beach High School, it appears the district will have to relocate Hodge Elementary School somewhere in the same neighborhood.  They’re still looking at all the options for the future of the school.

Students will continue attending Hodge in the same building this fall.