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Budget cuts are tricky for reporters. There’s the obvious stuff; a board cuts X number of jobs. That we can see and write about and discuss the potential impact.

But there’s the less obvious stuff. A cut here, a cut there and it might not show up in the big picture but in the classroom it turns out your kid’s class can’t have a pet rabbit this year – or something to that effect.

So with a week of school under the belt I’m curious what you parents have seen at your school. More kids in the classes? Fewer resources? Have they cut extracurricular programs.

Tell us about it here or drop me a line at brian.ewing@news-record.com.
 

Former Guilford County Schools superintendent Jerry Weast announced he will retire from his post as Montgomery County Schools superintendent. That’s Montgomery County, Maryland, one of the largest school systems in the nation.

Here’s the Washington Post article about that.

Weast, as many of you likely recall, was the first superintendent of the unified Guilford County school system. He held that post until 1999 when he left for Maryland.
 

Charlotte is asking student athletes to pay as much as 100 bucks to play sports this year due to budget cuts. No one even mentioned that here, but next year by all accounts will set some new precedents should budget cuts come as expected.

Should kids have to play schools sports? Is sacrificing volleyball worth a few new computers?
 

Here’s some food for thought on the $10 billion Washington has freed up for schools. I’ve asked Guilford County Schools what we can expect here but they’re still crunching numbers. I doubt we’ll see more folks hired for the same reasons mentioned in the Times article.

Oh, and you might find it interesting that former GCS superintendent and current Houston Superintendent Terry Grier is quoted in the article. Grier and the Times have a history together: GCS was featured in a couple of Times’ articles while he was here.
 

The school district now has an anti-bullying policy among its personnel policies. The policy prohibits any employee from “harassing, bullying or discriminating against any person,” and directs staff to report such behavior.

I’m not sure how common such policies are in the professional world. We don’t have one at the N&R.

Is this kind of thing necessary? Does bullying exist in the modern workplace? Do any of you that work in the district know of a time when someone was bullied? Are you getting bullied?

The school board will likely discuss making additional budget cuts tonight to free up a little over $1 million so they can fund 5.5 custodian positions that became vacant in May as well as paying for a 1 percent raise for folks hired through the classifieds, i.e. custodians, maintenance personnel secretaries.

Green recommended cutting the custodian positions.

Those employees have complained they haven’t gotten a raise in five years, while others in the district have gotten raises. District officals say they last got a raise in 2009.

Spearheaded by board member Darlene Garrett, the effort has support from Paul Daniels and Deena Hayes.

The hitch is the board will have to cut more from the budget to do it. Garrett and Daniels argue more could be trimmed from the travel budget, money used by school folks including administrators to go to conferences and the like. Called paid vacations by many, officials argue they come home with valuable info and connections.

Garrett and Daniels also want to cut the entire office of chief administrative officer. Green recommends cutting the salary of the top job – left empty by now Durham Superintendent Eric Becoats – and eliminating the second in command in the office. Garrett and Daniels have suggested cutting the office altogether and the idea has support from several other members by my count. There were lots of questions about what exactly Becoats was doing. Green made him the point man on rolling out all his strategic plan initiatives.

I’m not sure of exact dollars amounts. I requested the info yesterday but got nada. It’s become frustratingly common for the school district not supply public info likely to be discussed by the board before the board gets to discuss it. Pretty much a blatant disregard for state law but that’s a rant for another time.

But aside from finding the dough, the board will have to decide if the cash is a bonus or raise. A raise is just that and so the district would have to come up with that cash next year and so on. A bonus is a one-time deal but apparently it isn’t easy to do for legal reasons. It’s not been explained to me why that is.

So, dear reader, what should the board do with your money?
 

Peoria, Ill. is creating GCS II: The Empire Strikes Back, or something along those lines. Much lauded High Point Central High Principal Revonda Johnson is heading to Peoria for central office job. She’s joined by Michelle Ungurait, director GCS’s Magnet and Choice Schools, as well as several other admins and principals. Ungurait will be the associate superintendent in Peoria.

Here’s a rundown by the Peoria’s Journal Star.
 

I’m writing story that will run either Wednesday or Thursday that looks at the Southeast Area Elementary school issue as well as the broader issue of how community advocacy stands to impact school construction.

At the core of the issue is a simple question, should schools be built where it’s fiscally and logistically most responsible or should the desires of the communities those schools will impact carry more weight?

The folks of southeast say they were promised a school that would serve only their community. The school board says building the school where they’ve proposed would serve both the southeast community and some of the eastern Guilford County community which has shown growth needs.

What do you think? Should the school board do as communities desire when building schools, even if it costs the entire county more money in the long run or should the board stand its ground and do what they argue is best for the entire community?
 

The school district released preliminary testing results this week and they were pretty impressive, showing strong gains in schools targeted for improvement and more kids on grade level in more schools.

Two groups of schools were targeted for the biggest push, the nine in the Enrichment Region and the 10 designated low-performing by the state. Some schools are in both camps.

Despite the improvements, the number of students testing proficient remains low, just approve half in several schools.

Because of that Green says he won’t be changing much of the focus this school year. In fact he says all of the Enrichment Region schools will remain in that grouping. But they have lost a strong leader, Green says.

Lewis Ferebee, the Enrichment Region superintendent, left the district this week to be former GCS Chief Administrative Officer and current Durham Public Schools Superintendent Eric Becoats’ chief of staff.

“This is a huge loss to Guilford County Schools,” Green said this week of Ferebee.

The search for the new Enrichment Region super is underway but Green wouldn’t say how soon he’ll make the appointment.
 

The state budget passed this week and with it the General Assembly bestowed upon school boards the ability to impose furloughs. As it happens Superintendent Green’s budget proposal includes a two-day furlough as a possible cost-cutting measure.

It was generally understood that school boards could cut pay but giving folks a day off to compensate for that cut was up for some debate.

The talk in Guilford County has been that a furlough would only be enacted if the state budget cut funding deeply. The state budget impact locally is still being mulled over but by most accounts it’s better than planned for.

However, Green said during recent school board meeting that he’d consider furloughs before making the deep administrative job cuts that he also proposes at the same level of cuts as the furlough.

I expect the decision to be made during the next board meeting, scheduled for July 13.