FORT PIERCE — Faced with unprecedented cuts to public schools, St. Lucie County teachers, school board members and community leaders are gathering Saturday to pressure legislators to “put kids first and cut education last.”

More than 1,000 people are expected to attend a rally and march at the school board offices on Okeechobee Road. They plan to gather at 9:30 a.m. and march at 10.

With state budget cuts, St. Lucie County schools lost about $23 million for the 2008-09 school year and are estimated to lose another $30 million in the 2009-10 school year, said Superintendent Michael Lannon.

School officials said such deep losses mean every possibility must be considered, such as closing schools, cutting athletics, across-the-board pay cuts and transportation changes.

“Everything’s on the chopping block, and nothing’s been decided,” said Kathryn Hensley, a school board member.

The school board is expected to take up the issue in February, but school officials want to raise awareness now.

They hope the community will join them in asking legislators to look for additional sources of revenue for education or allow greater flexibility when complying with requirements to lower class sizes and provide pre-kindergarten programs.

“We’re looking at this rally as just the beginning,” said Vicki Rodriguez, vice president of the teachers union. “You can get people angry, but that’s not really the point.”

The point, school officials say, is that people understand that a $30 million cut cannot be achieved by axing one program.

Cut athletics and the district saves $1.7 million. A 1 percent across-the-board pay cut saves $2.2 million. Closing a medium-sized elementary school saves less than $1 million.

Even if the board took the dramatic step of cutting all of the district’s executives, the amount saved is still just $3 million, or 1.7 percent of all salaries.

“For $30 million, we would most likely have to look at programs,” Hensley said.
Such cuts, too, might jeopardize hard-won improvements made in the school system or make it difficult to move forward, Hensley said.

Last year, St. Lucie rose from a C-rated school district to a B under the state’s grading system.

“It would be very hard for us to tow the line,” she said.

Tags: class size, Kathryn Hensley, pre-kindergarten, state cuts

This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 5:42 pm and is filed under Fort Pierce, Schools, St. Lucie County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.