FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 Melanie Berkin, a Broward County Public Schools veteran and activist, wore her black T-shirt with a \u201cSCHOOL SOCIAL WORKER\u201d sign in bright font. <\/p>\n
Berkin has been fighting to increase public school teachers\u2019 pay, but with student enrollment declining, she was fighting for hundreds of jobs on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe district is trying to propose that they cut these mental health positions, and then they want the ones that are left to cover for the positions that they\u2019re cutting,\u201d Berkin said, while at the Broward County School Board K.C. Wright Building in Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n
School Board members met on Tuesday for a workshop to discuss Superintendent Howard Hepburn\u2019s proposed job cuts and decided to postpone their vote. <\/p>\n
The proposal cuts 856 positions, including 300 occupied positions, 159 vacant positions, and 53 support positions, to save $40 million in response to the $80 million budget shortfall caused by declines in student enrollment.<\/p>\n
Anna Fusco, the president of the Broward Teachers Union, said that the proposal\u2019s claim that it would only cut staff is false. <\/p>\n
\u201cA speech pathologist is an educator,\u201d Fusco said. \u201cThey teach kids with speech. Our social workers are family counselors, our school counselors, our ESE counselors, those are teachers that teach kids with mental health, behavioral … trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol Harvey, a speech pathologist, said she wants School Board members to consider the value of what they do for BCPS students. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe work with our hearts,\u201d Harvey said. \u201cWe work with passion, and we help the community, we help the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
School Board member Adam Cervera said the proposal is \u201ctop heavy\u201d so he was planning to vote against it anyway. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re going to go into a private sector company and you\u2019re going to reorganize, right? You start from the top. You go from the CEO down,\u201d Cervera said. \u201cYou don\u2019t go to the stores and fire all the cashiers and the managers, right? That wouldn\u2019t make a lot of sense.\u201d<\/p>\n