SCS retools; handful of jobs on line

Baffled over 2,000-2,400 students it can’t find

In the last two years, Shelby County Schools has made many decisions to preserve resources closest to students. After days of calculation and rearranging staffing counts, Supt. Dorsey Hopson Thursday said he expects a net loss of five jobs in a wild downswing in enrollment that continues to baffle district numbers-crunchers.

Tuesday, district leaders said they had identified 220 total jobs, including 166 teachers, that would have to be cut because SCS has 4,000 fewer students than it projected. By allowing principals to put excess positions in a pool for other principals to draw on and using unspent federal funds to add 37 tutors and other “interventionists” for struggling students, it now expects to eliminate five positions, although Hopson said Thursday he was still looking at “oneoff cases” involving several extra assistant principals. “If it’s a matter of the numbers being off by 20 students or something like that, we’ll see what we can do,” he said.

The actual number losing jobs will likely be more than five, though, because teachers are not interchangeable. They must be certified in their subject areas. The final outcome will be determined at a job fair Monday that the district is holding exclusively for the displaced.

All teachers, whether they are still with the district or not will receive the onetime bonus in October that takes the place of a raise this year.

The bonus is based on merit. Top-performers will receive $1,250; those on the bottom of the performance scale will get $250.

Even if the job loss has been abated, hundreds of students will be affected as teachers move out and classes merge or are dropped. None of the suburban schools are cutting teachers this week.

While district counts were significantly off, equally troubling to the board is that it has 2,000 to 2,400 students it can’t find, which prompted newly elected board member Mike Kernell to suggest a $500 finders fee for agencies that could help get the students to school.

“We have better ways to keep track of dogs than we do children,” he said after a budget meeting. “If we spend $500, we have a lot to gain.”

The district gets about $10,000 in state and local taxes for each student. It gets nothing if they are not in school.

“We can identify the kids in the municipalities and in charter schools, but beyond that, we have about 2,000 that haven’t shown up to school,” said Kevin Woods, board chairman. “We do believe some may have moved and that information will come in slowly over time.”

Seeding Success has done an analysis of the problem, said executive