The 2024-25 staffing plan proposed by Leon County Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna is about $17 million more than the current year’s budget.
But while it is an increase, it is not without consequences.
The document obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat reflects what Hanna hinted in February when the district reached agreements with its teacher’s union on a $5.12 million salary package, saying that “something has to give.”
The most dramatic consequence is that the academic interventionist positions will be cut from middle and high school campuses and reduced to two positions at each elementary school. All schools will maintain a social worker and an extra guidance counselor based on school population.
This means about 69 people are losing their jobs, and not likely to be transferred to other positions within the district, Hanna confirmed.
Staffing plans are released annually and shared with principals to provide a snapshot of how much money their school will get to cover salaries and school activities. It is based on how many full-time equivalent (FTE) students are enrolled and funded by the state.
The document for 2024-25 does not reflect any teaching or administrative roles being cut. Academic interventionists are the only positions on the chopping block.
Assistant Superintendent Billy Epting also said some vacant district administrative office positions would be frozen. Those positions have not been identified.
Leon Classroom Teachers Association President Scott Mazur said the position cuts give the district the opportunity to support teachers at a greater level.
“We know that teacher and staff efficacy have the greatest impact on student achievement,” Mazur told the Tallahassee Democrat. “Now we need to make a choice to ensure resources are properly in place in the classroom.”
As students returned to campus after the pandemic, the district reported an uptick in undesirable behavior, alarming mental health issues and lackluster academic performance as a result of students missing out on social and academic engagement.
To combat the learning loss and troublesome behaviors, the district assigned an additional guidance counselor, three academic interventionists and social workers to each school.
The full-time academic interventionist role was created to help students who were falling behind in their studies after spending a year learning remotely during the pandemic.
Interventionists stepped in to assist students throughout the school day in a range of subjects to get grades back on track. Salaries were covered by COVID-related federal dollars distributed to school districts across the country.
“We kept them at elementary schools because if we catch a student that’s behind early on, we are proactively preventing a need for interventionists at higher levels in the future,” Epting told the Tallahassee Democrat.
Here’s how cuts came about
For the current 2023-24 school year, LCS is operating under a $184 million staffing plan to fund the salaries of teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators and other positions.
The 2024-25 plan includes $201 million for salaries, an increase of about $17 million.
“Leon County Schools has never had a staffing plan of over $200 million. This is a first,” Hanna said.
The increase in funding will cover raises for the $5.12 million teacher salary package approved last month after 10 months of negotiations. It also will go toward replacing some of the $60 million lost in federal COVID relief money that paid the salaries of guidance counselors, social workers and academic interventionists.
“There’s a give and take and unfortunately for us to come up with this salary package something has to give, and I can’t go into our savings account in our fund balance any more than we already have,” Hanna told the Tallahassee Democrat in previous reporting.
At the start of the 2023 school year, the district allocated $62.5 million of leftover elementary and secondary school emergency relief (ESSER) funds granted during the pandemic for progress monitoring, interventions and learning loss.
“We added guidance counselors, social workers and interventionists with federal money,” Hanna said. “We knew that those positions were in jeopardy once the federal funding went away at the end of this school year.”
But now the district is on its own since the funds expire in June.
Back story:‘In a good place’: Leon Schools has more to spend in 2023 but federal funds are drying up
More:Leon Schools reaches $5.12M salary deal with teachers, but Hanna points to cuts elsewhere
Alaijah Brown covers children & families for the Tallahassee Democrat. She can be reached at ABrown1@gannett.com.