If you’re an HISD principal, the next few weeks will be no fun at all.
More public school employees can expect pink slips in coming weeks as state law requires districts to notify teachers by mid-April – technically, 45 days before the last day of instruction – if they don’t have guaranteed jobs in the coming year. If the budget picture improves, the employees could be hired back.
The Houston Independent School District board kick-started the cuts this month, authorizing Superintendent Terry Grier to give layoff notices to about 90 employees – many of them literacy coaches – because federal stimulus funding or other grants were drying up.
HISD is preparing for a projected shortfall of $170 million – about 10 percent of the district’s $1.6 billion operating budget. On March 10, the board approved lowering the funding it distributes to each school by $275 per student.
Just as a reminder, as things stand the budget proposed by the Senate would be slightly better for HISD than they were originally expecting, though that would still translate to over $100 million in lost funding for them. The House budget is far more draconian, worse than HISD is planning for, and it’s not at all clear that the House will go along with what the Senate wants to do. In other words, the misery being felt now may be just the beginning. And just think, TAKS tests are at the end of April. I’m sure everyone will be in a great frame of mind for them, don’t you?