Another move that hurts Escambia schoolkids

Last night, the Escambia County School Board voted 4-1 to approve Superintendent Jim Paul’s plan to reduce budget by roughly $6.2 million, in response to the expected $15+ million shortfall the District is facing. Rather than look at administrative cutbacks, Paul’s plan focus on cutting teachers and elementary school clerks. While no current employees will lose their jobs, the District will simply hire less teachers (as if our class sizes aren’t big enough already) and reassign personnel, while requiring current teachers to work more in order to fill the gap.

The sole dissenting vote was cast by Claudia Brown-Curry (ECSB-3), who said, “I still feel we have not addressed cuts at the top level — the fat if you will.” Brown-Curry is a Democratic candidate to replace Paul as Superintendent of Schools.

While the other board members voted in favor of Paul’s plan, board member Patty Hightower (ECSB-4) did ask School Board Attorney Donna Waters if the board had the authority to eliminate positions not included in Paul’s plan. While Waters said she felt the board did have that authority, Paul said he would challenge any attempt by the Board to exercise it. “We don’t want to involve ourselves in a constitutional crisis,” he said. How arrogant.

Paul also tried to float a proposal to cut nearly $1.7 million from non-teaching positions, but that was voted down, with only Hightower voting for it.

Why does our local government always look to cut that which most affects citizens rather that reduce salary, overhead, and inefficiency in administration? The Superintendent of Schools makes $130,436. Why?

Have our schools really gotten any better since Paul has been Superintendent? I don’t think so. It’s time for a change.