news-record.com

CHARLOTTE (MCT) -- With the first day of classes just a week away, the leaders of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools are racing to fill as many as 500 teaching vacancies and move dozens of mobile classrooms.

Interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh and other officials said they expect schools to open smoothly and on time next Thursday. But they acknowledged they are scrambling to get hundreds of additional teachers and classrooms ready.

They called the last-minute rush unavoidable -- pointing out that higher-than-expected payments from the county and state brought hundreds of additional teaching positions.

Human resources chief Dan Habrat said that as of Wednesday, CMS had about 500 teaching vacancies, but offers have gone out for about half those jobs, and the district is working to get those teachers in place.

By the start of school, he expects to have offers out for all but about 100 positions. Given that newly hired applicants often need time to get out of their old jobs or get moved, Habrat estimated that about 350 classrooms could start next week without their permanent teachers in place.

In many instances, those classes would be overseen by assistant principals, guidance counselors or others until the teacher arrives. Asked which schools seem to have the worst vacancy issues, he pointed to elementary schools.

He noted that Mallard Creek Elementary, for instance, has 13 vacancies.

Habrat said his staff has been working weekends and is filling about 100 to 150 teaching jobs per week. CMS officials say the state told them in July how many teachers the district would have.

Said Hattabaugh: "It's not the ideal way to hire ... but the last-minute changes in funding from the state and county gave us more money and we're delighted to have the additional teachers."

CMS will have about 9,700 teachers this year, up 500 from last year.

The district is projected to have 138,141 K-12 students this year, up about 2,500 from last year. It will have about 3,300 pre-kindergarten students, about the same as last year.

Associate Superintendent Guy Chamberlain, who oversees construction and building services for CMS, said the district must get 138 more mobile classrooms in place because of the additional teachers and the relocation of pre-kindergarten classes.

Eighty of the mobiles will be taken out of mothballs at their current sites and should be ready for the start of school. The rest need to be relocated, and all of those won't be in place until October.

Until then, Chamberlain said some schools will need to let classes meet in media centers or in their cafeterias.

Asked whether the need for all the mobiles meant CMS made a mistake in closing about a dozen schools last year, Hattabaugh pointed to the $5.3 million the district will save every year.

"With the economy as fragile as it is, I would not even entertain that," he said. "We're moving in the right direction."
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.