Comments on: The next shoe is dropping… 40 HUSD jobs to be cut

By: Maria Maria

Maria Maria — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:02:59 +0000

By the way almost all the Directors there at district office are from Dysart! Go figure that

By: Maria Maria

Maria Maria — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:57:33 +0000

The news is that the Director of Special Ed Dr. Catherine Cisar has resigned from the district. Her last day will be June 30. This district is doomed now. I felt she was doing good things for the district. Many parents and teachers had good things to say about her. I hope and pray they hire someone who has experience in Special Education as a Administrator. They don’t need someone that is week and has no knowledge of being an Administrator. Who is willing to stand up to parents, teachers, and board members. This Director will need to stay honest and true to the laws of the government when dealing with special needs children. And not a YES Man. I will hate to see her leave. It would be great if they can get a parent from each campus with special needs together to interview the next Director of Special Ed. I think they have a Special Ed Committee that consists of these parents. That Committe needs to interview the next Director. I just hope that Dr. Birdwell don’t bring someone in from her old district Dysart.

By: azfam

azfam — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:11:14 +0000

HUSD employees should follow the others who went to CUSD! They are opening 2 new schools, and is growing just like HUSD. The below is quoted from EVT…

“The Chandler school district - which is still growing in enrollment - will hire at least 75 new positions, said district spokesman Terry Locke.

Any state budget cuts could be addressed in the Chandler district a number of ways, including cuts in district travel funds and field trips, increasing class sizes by one student each, and a reduction of overtime, according to the preliminary report from the district’s chief financial officer, Joel Wirth.

Chandler has also built up a contingency fund. Arizona statute allows school districts to carry over up to 4 percent of their maintenance and operations funds each year. Chandler has close to $10 million that it planned to use once growth stopped. But the district is prepared to use some of those funds if necessary, according to the report. At this time, how much of those funds will be used has yet to be determined.

“The biggest reason we’re not (having a reduction in force) is because we’re growing as a district,” Locke said. “We’re hiring additional teachers to account for the growth and account for people who leave the district.”

By: Katie

Katie — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:57:28 +0000

“38 fulltime jobs and 1 part-time position and decided that about a dozen teachers and an assistant principal will have to accept other positions if they want to stay on board next year.”

The question is, how many of these dozen or so that were cut are going to be offered the offer for other positions? When will those offers go out? Are they going to be expected to wait until the end of summer to know what their futures look like? Rather than cut them, they should have been told which other positions were going to be possible and then offers made at that time.

While I can understand this is not an issue for HUSD alone, it seems that they started to cut at the wrong end of the spectrum. If, in fact, we are running out of money, Start some substantial cuts in the top. Let’s get rid of some of those that received hefty raises last year. Let’s eliminate the positions that were created during the reorganization. The district survived with one Cirriculum director, decide which of the 3 we really need and cut the others. Do we really need an executive administrative assistant for and assistant superintendent that we are not hiring? Either let Dr. Birdwells old one go or the one that was working for Dr. Lutrey. The district already has a cirriculum secretary, so we don’t need another one of those.

By: azfam

azfam — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:46:05 +0000

Administrators can think of other ways to save money.
They can start by cutting back on their ridiculous benefits, reducing salaries across the board, maybe even take back the promotions that were handed out less than a year ago to brand new directors only months after they were hired. They could also condense the tasks of the high earners, and let one of them go (none of this “retirement junk”).
Instead, they cut the little people (some who have given years to HUSD). The little people are the ones with house and car payments (they don’t get a car allowance like administrators)- they are the ones whoese families rely on these jobs for medical insurance (they don’t get free family coverage like administrators).
And on a related note, blaming cuts on 150 teachers calling off in 1 day….teachers earn their vacation like the other little people (they are bot hired with weeks of vacation, or the option to buyback unused days).
I am upset with the board for not investigating further before approving the current administrations proposals.