Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 6, 1990                   TAG: 9004060543
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: DUBLIN                                LENGTH: Medium

14 TEACHERS FACING LAYOFFS

The School Board had announced two months ago that 20 positions at the high school would be cut next year to match a decrease in enrollment.

Superintendent James Burns said Thursday that he still hopes at least half of the jobs can be eliminated through attrition and that teachers will be reassigned to other positions in the school system before classes begin again next fall.

"We have every hope of bringing them back home before August," he said. "As we have resignations and retirements, I believe that can take place. I can't guarantee it, but I'm very optimistic about it."

But not all of the teachers can be reassigned.

Burns said about half of the 20 layoffs will be in the vocational education department. The cut will eliminate a fourth of the vocational staff.

Most of the teachers in that department are not certified to teach core academic courses and cannot be moved to other classrooms, Burns said.

"We can't offer them new contracts," he said. "The jobs that are open are in fields like second-grade social studies - jobs in the general certification area. We can't move them over. We'll have to put them on our RIF [Reduction In Force] list. We're losing some good folks and we're sorry to lose them."

Personnel workers have met for the past few days with teachers whose contracts will not be renewed, Burns said. "Most of the teachers have known and had these discussions in the past."

The staff was told about the layoffs months ago when the School Board first considered cutting the positions to help meet budget requirements. Teachers will be laid off according to seniority in certification areas.

"Nobody is happy with the circumstances, but I think they understand the facts and figures," Burns said.

Positions will be eliminated in most of the major departments, Burns said. "Our original list dealt with every department but foreign language."

Enrollment at the high school has dropped from 2,400 to 1,800 over the past seven years. "That's a reduction of about one-fourth," Burns said. "We're reducing the staff in proportion to the students we've lost over the years."

State projections show another decrease of about 200 high school students enrolled over the next two years and a "marked decrease in funding," Burns said, which means cutting another 10 teaching jobs.

But those jobs will likely be phased out as teachers retire or resign. Burns said that on the average, five teachers will retire each year over the next five years.

The continuing decline in enrollment reflects a drop in the county's birth rate several years ago, Burns said. After the next two years, the school system's population should stabilize, he said.