Easton Schools Cut 77

It looks like more bad news is coming for the students and the workers of the  Easton Area School District. For those of you who have never heard of the  Easton Area School District, it is in the state of Pennsylvania and they are getting ready to cut back on about 77 jobs in order to make their budget work the way that it should.

On the bright side the cuts are not the only option. Currently the cuts are only proposed, and they may be offset by a pay freeze, taken both by teaching staff and the administration of the school. The Superintendent Susan McGinley will also be taking a pay freeze in a display of solidarity with the other members of the staff.

While there is a plan that involves no layoffs at all this plan is unlikely, since it requires voters to approve a 2.2 percent tax increase in order to make it work. It would also require taking a significant amount, $1.5 million, from the schools reserve funding in order to make it work. If the layoff plan is the one that is chosen then about 40 of the cuts will be classroom teachers, 10 will be from the janitorial staff an the rest will come from assorted paraprofessionals, such as teachers aids, that the schools employ. All of these cuts are needed to close a hole of about $9 million that is coming in the next school years budget, as tax revenues and aid from the state have both decreased over the long term economic decline.

Of course it is not only the schools in the state of Pennsylvania that are impacted by these budgetary problems. As a matter of fact the schools in some states are faring much worse in the current economy and the number of cuts that they have to make in order to make ends meet.

For those of your missed out on our earlier coverage here is a look at their problems that will get you up to speed in no time at all:

“It looks like things are getting much, much worse for the schoolteachers in the state of California. We have been talking a lot, in the last couple of weeks and months about the kinds of cuts that are being made to the schools in the state. In a lot of cases those cuts are being made in generic terms we know how many workers are going to be let go, but we do not know how many of them will be classroom teachers. Today we had some light shed on those numbers.

According to information released by the California Teachers Association an estimated 19,500 classroom teachers were given layoff notices over the past couple of weeks. The layoff notices had to be given by the 15^th of March in order to be legal under the laws of the state of California. So if an educator did not get a layoff notice by that date then they are free and clear, at least until next years deadline.

The cuts, which are coming because of the need to cut 20 Billion in funding from the state education budget. Unless the schools get a tax increase from voters in the near future, which is on the ballet, the schools will have to make these cuts, which average out to about $370 per student in the state. The only good news for schools is that the number of enrolled students at California schools is, depending on where you live, either staying stable or shrinking.”