Wake County school leaders said Tuesday that they had no choice but to raise class sizes and eliminate many teacher assistant positions to cope with cuts in state funding.
The higher number of students in class and the cut in teacher assistants will make up $21.7 million in discretionary cuts out of a $35.1 million overall reduction in state funding to Wake, the state's largest school district.
School officials accuse state leaders of dumping responsibility for the cuts on local districts to make them take the blame for unpopular choices.
"They knew class sizes had to go up," said school board member Lori Millberg. "They're passing the buck."
The recently adopted state budget has $225 million in cuts in K-12 education funding, leaving the specific cuts up to local school districts.
But Wake school leaders complained that those cuts weren't as discretionary as legislators have made it appear.
David Neter, Wake's chief business officer, said that until a few weeks ago, state budget writers were calling for raising class sizes in grades 4 through 12 by two students and reducing money for teacher assistants. He told school board members that while those specific details are not in the final budget, the same amount of money is being eliminated and forcing local school systems to raise class sizes and eliminate teacher assistants anyway.
Lawmakers and the state teacher lobby say school systems can tap into millions of federal stimulus dollars — $43 million in Wake's case — to avoid classroom cuts.
Though school officials are using federal stimulus money to save some existing positions, much of it is being used to create new jobs such as math coaches at elementary schools and additional pre-kindergarten teachers that officials say they can afford to lose when the stimulus money runs out in two years. (N&O)
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