save about $40 million<\/a>. The district is grappling with budget cuts due to years of declining enrollment.<\/p>\nBut board members decided the plan wasn\u2019t ready for approval. Board member Nora Rupert asked the board to postpone the vote and discuss the plan at a workshop, which is scheduled for May 11. A final vote is expected on May 19.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt needs to be looked at from top to bottom,\u201d Rupert said at the meeting. \u201cThis is not the way really good government looks, the way we\u2019re doing it right now. \u2026 For our community, our students, our employees, and for us, we need to bring this back to another workshop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Board member Adam Cervera agreed the plan needs improvements and said he wants to \u201cavoid having repeat performances where the entire community comes out and tells you that your org chart is a dumpster fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
District employees and community members who turned out on Tuesday widely panned the proposed plan. They questioned why it cut such jobs as suicide prevention coordinators and mental health instructional specialists at a time when mental health issues are prevalent among students.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to show parents that you care about their children\u2019s mental stability and their wellness,\u201d Victoria Trujillo Cortellese, an instructional teacher facilitator, told board members. \u201cOur community needs you to be courageous right now and make those hard decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Board members agreed to restore most mental health-related positions.<\/p>\n
Hepburn resisted efforts to delay the plan, saying people who are losing their jobs need as much notice as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe intentionally started this process earlier to ensure impacted employees get the right type of support to assist them with their next steps,\u201d he told the board. \u201cAnd I think creating an aura of uncertainty where people are wishing and praying that \u2018I\u2019m going to be the person that gets my job back because the board is going to bring something back,\u2019 I think that\u2019s not great for the system. I think we need to make some hard decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
During public comment, Nathalie Lynch-Walsh, a longtime volunteer and frequent critic of management, told board members, \u201cYour superintendent needs to learn to read the room. It\u2019s a bad idea\u201d to pass the organization chart Tuesday. \u201cEverybody has issues with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hepburn has faced criticism that his plan saves too many high-level jobs while cutting too many rank-and-file jobs. He disputes that, arguing the greatest proportion of job cuts are at the director level or above. Some audience members were skeptical.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we look at areas like counseling, mental health and student services, we see titles and layers, directors, supervisors, coordinators, but what we don\u2019t see is more people actually working directly with the students. And that\u2019s the problem. A big problem,\u201d parent Muriel Theophin-Atilus\u00a0 said during public comments.<\/p>\n
Dan Reynolds, president of the Federation of Public Employees, which represents service workers in the district, told board members his employees have already gone through cuts in the past. He said the district has reduced facilities, food service and transportation workers by 30% in the past 15 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we don\u2019t have any more room\u201d for cuts, he said. \u201cWhen you need a plumber, you don\u2019t need any of the six people in the org chart above them to show up. You need a plumber with a bag full of tools.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A plan to cut hundreds of Broward school jobs proved too contentious and difficult for School Board members…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,113,28,249,251,250,266,115,109,32797],"class_list":["post-250484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-education","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-social","tag-south-florida-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}