During Friday’s meeting, the Columbus Municipal School District voted to release 10 teachers from their contracts for the 2017 school year, despite the strenuous objections of Superintendent Philip Hickman.
Under district policy, teachers who seek to leave the district before to the end of their contracts must either meet certain “hardship” criteria or provide a qualified replacement for their position.
Two of the teachers released from their contracts Friday met medical hardship standards. The other eight — including six elementary teachers and two high school teachers — were asking exemptions from the district’s policy, which was changed in May to make it possible for contracted teachers to leave the district.
Without a release, a teacher loses teaching certification in the state for a one-year period.
Board member Jason Spears said he was inclined to grant the releases on the theory that holding a teacher to the contract when the teacher doesn’t want to be in the district serves no good purpose.
Hickman disagreed.
“There is still a professional standard among teachers,” he said. “A teacher who doesn’t continue to meet those standards can face consequences that are part of their record. So, both professionally and in terms of protecting their reputations, there is every reason for that teacher to do the job. We believe our teachers are committed to the kids.”
Hickman said losing the 10 teachers just two months before the start of the new school year is detrimental to the students.
“It’s not fair to the kids,” Hickman said.
After the board voted in favor of releasing the teachers, Hickman spoke again in protest of the move.
“I just want it to be included in the record that I disagree with your decision,” he said.
Project cost overrun
Also during Friday’s meeting, Kevin Stafford of Neel-Schaffer Engineering and Jose Arellano of Pryor & Morrow Architects, updated the board on the status of four projects that have been completed or will be completed by the end of the month.
The board had approved $2,210,478 for the projects, which included a new football weight room, a new track and long-jump pit, upgrades to the soccer facility, an indoor baseball hitting facility and a new softball concession stand and locker room.
While roughly $95,000 remains in the budget for those projects, board members learned that $326,000 in cost overruns, most of it associated with the new track at the high school, will mean the district will have to spend approximately $200,000 from its reserves after all payments are made.
“The biggest reason for the cost overrun was that when we excavated the existing track, we found problems with the base below it,” Arellano said. “The base just wasn’t up to standards needed to support the new track service, so we had to go in and put in the proper base.”
Trustees, having been previously advised that there would be a cost overrun, had voted to cover those additional coast through its reserves.
Savings on other projects mitigated the total overruns of $326,878. The hitting facility came in $16,558 under budget while the weight room and soccer facility projects came in about $5,000 under budget each.
Finally, the board also instructed CMSD business manager to meet with the district’s bond attorney to explore a variety of debt-restructuring possibilities suggested by Spears, who is a financial planner.
The board will next meet on July 29 when the district’s FY 2017 budget will be presented to the board for approval.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.