By: Eddy Gifford, Publisher
Dade County Schools finally have a calendar for the 2012-2013 school year.
The Board of Education held a special called meeting Monday night and adopted the calendar on a 3-2 vote.
Board Members Carolyn Bradford, Mutt Massengale and Jeff Forester voted in favor of the calendar while Ronnie Page and David Powell voted against.
The 2012-2013 school year will begin on Sept. 4th and end on May 31st and includes a three day fall break in October, a week off at Thanksgiving, two weeks off for Christmas and a spring break the last week of March.
Teachers will report on Aug. 27th and their final day will be June 6th.
The Board had discussed the calendar for the past several months and recently rejected the calendar recommended by Superintendent Shawn Tobin that had school starting on Aug. 10th.
The 168–day calendar will result in a slightly longer school day for students in order to get in the necessary classroom minutes required by the state.
Personnel was also a big issue at Monday night's meeting as the Board meet in executive session for an hour and a half before rehiring teachers and accepting four resignations.
Those resignations were Jeff Petersohn, math teacher; Kara Silvers, art teacher; Terry Adkins, drafting teacher and Mary Lou Lynch, parent mentor, all at the high school.
The Board also hired Tracy Blevins as assistant principal at Dade Elementary School to replace Mike Lawson who is retiring.
Pam Smith was hired as math teacher at the high school and Misty Giles was hired as a substitute teacher.
When it came time to rehire teachers and administrators for next year Superintendent Tobin recommended a six page list of teachers.
Board Member Massengale asked that Dr. Jody Goodroe be voted on separately.
All teachers recommended by Tobin were approved by a unanimous vote.
Dr. Goodroe was then approved by a 3-2 vote with Forester, Page and Powell voting to rehire and Massengale and Bradford voting against rehiring.
The Board then passed a Reduction in Force Plan for the 2012-2013 School Year.
That plan reads in part, due to a loss of students, ongoing and anticipated reductions in revenue resulting in a need to reduce the District’s budget by approximately $1.5 million for FY13, and a need to economize the operations of the Dade County School District, it is recommended that the Board of Education, pursuant to Policy GBKA, adopt the following Reduction in Force Plan:
Eliminate one counseling position at Dade County High School.
Eliminate the Driver’s Education program and all associated positions.
Eliminate all P.E. paraprofessional positions in the District.
Eliminate all media center paraprofessional positions in the District.
Eliminate the shared paraprofessional position between Dade and Davis Elementary Schools.
The District’s alternative school program as it is presently structured and organized will be eliminated, including its two teaching positions and one paraprofessional position. It will be replaced by a newly organized alternative school program that will be housed solely at Dade County High School. The only position in the new program will be a new position of Alternative School Coordinator.
The remainder of the plan dealt with duties of the coordinator. A coordinator for the program has not been named yet but should be in the near future.
In the only other business of the night the Board voted to stop paying the cost of life insurance and short and long–term disability for employees at a savings to the system of approximately $74,000 per year. All Board members voted in favor of this change.
Doug Eza, a consultant to the Board, gave a FY13 Budget Update and painted a grim picture due to funding cuts at the state and federal level.
Eza told the Board that FY12 indications are the projections for the Dade School system to spend approximately $16.4 million this year and to have revenues of $15.65 million.
The annual deficit, about $750,000 will be taken from a beginning-of-year reserve of $2.96 million.
That would leave the system with a June 30, fund balance of about $2.2 million.
The projections for the FY13 budget will be explained in greater detail in next week’s Sentinel.