Those are only a couple of examples of the cuts coming to Florida schools. The legislature is totally in the GOP hands, and Rick Scott is ruthless.
Manatee teachers take brunt of proposed budget cutsEliminating elementary school extracurricular activities teachers is just one of the proposed cuts. That cut affects about 35 teaching jobs in Manatee County. Eliminating those positions increases the total job cuts submitted to board members beyond 50. Teachers’ aides will run those classes, district officials say.
Teachers' aides are quite capable, but do they have the qualifications to take over classes? Have requirements changed that much?
Other job cuts include a school psychologist, a social worker, secretaries, a construction services team, nine maintenance jobs and all the elementary school resource officers. Maintenance departments will be outsourced.
Each school principal must cut from their respective budgets. Elementary schools must eliminate $42,000 or $84,000 from their operational budgets, depending upon which plan is accepted. Middle schools face losing either $110,000 or $220,000. And high schools will lose either $88,000 or $176,000.
..."Employees also face two to 10 furlough days. Hospital home-bound students will no longer be guaranteed rides. The media budget will be cut $250,000 to $500,000, depending upon which plan is accepted. And teachers will bear the brunt of ongoing changes that will impact salaries.
Outsourcing maintenance jobs does not save money. In fact in many cases the cost goes higher.
In Broward County many teachers are being laid off.
Parents, students in Pembroke Pines protest Broward teacher cutsThey are even getting around to one who has taught longer and with Master's degrees.
About 200 parents, students and educators in Pembroke Pines on Friday staged what they said will be the first of many protests against plans to fire about 1,400 Broward teachers. Carrying signs and blowing horns, the protesters stood at the busy intersection of Pines Boulevard and 155th Avenue for several hours while motorists honked their car horns in support.
Most of the demonstrators were parents and students from nearby Silver Palms Elementary, where 10 teachers are on the chopping block.
"This hurts. This really hurts," said Luz Marina Ucros, whose daughter, Karina is a fifth-grader at the school. "Losing these teachers is like losing part of our family."
The protest came after news this week that the Broward County School District is giving pink slips to about 1,400 teachers as it struggles with a $144 million budget shortfall. Teachers losing their jobs are primarily first- and second-year teachers who don't have continuing contracts.But on Friday, Silver Palms kindergarten teacher Heather Castillo, who holds a master's degree, said she has already been notified that she's being laid off, and she's been teaching for six years.
In 2008 Florida ranked 50th in education funding. I think I heard somewhere that we were 49th now, but I am sure that will go down again under Rick Scott's management.
Florida ranks 50th in nation in education funding; local districts foot much larger portionFlorida confirmed its reputation as a state that's cheap when it comes to funding education in a new report released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week.
Out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, Florida ranked second to last in spending compared to relative wealth.
For every $1,000 of residents' personal income, Florida spends $33.51 compared with the U.S. average of $43.34. Comparably poor Georgia ranks 13th, spending $48.21 per every $1,000.