{"id":278872,"date":"2026-05-21T00:56:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T00:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/278872\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T00:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T00:56:07","slug":"lee-county-schools-cut-257-teachers-amid-46m-budget-crisis-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/278872\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee County schools cut 257 teachers amid $46M budget crisis | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.leeschools.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Lee County School District<\/a> gave notice to 457 staff members, including 275 teachers, as it deals with a $46 million budget deficit.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the Lee County School Board meeting was interrupted as chants of &#8220;shame&#8221; echoed across the room. Parents, teachers and students have become increasingly vocal as the district cuts staff to deal with the budget shortfall.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s difficult to find somebody who hasn&#8217;t been impacted by this,&#8221; Kevin Daly said.<\/p>\n<p>The teachers&#8217; union previously said cuts are across the board, including teachers, administrative staff and assistant principals. The district says lower enrollment, lower property values and rising costs are driving the deficit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Decisions were made with the classroom and the students in mind, first,&#8221; Rob Spicker said.<\/p>\n<p>The district emphasized that arts and athletics won&#8217;t be eliminated, though the service delivery for some programs may be different.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The service delivery for some things may be different, but the programs themselves will continue,&#8221; Spicker said.<\/p>\n<p>Jason Larkin questioned the district&#8217;s approach.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And that&#8217;s right, you&#8217;re not cutting the arts or athletics, just the people who run them,&#8221; Larkin said.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the staff who have been cut could still get a job with the school district. Lee County Schools says it has 122 teacher openings for next school year and encourages folks to apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014The Lee County School District gave notice to 457 staff members, including 275 teachers, as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,28,897,356,23401,10632],"class_list":["post-278872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-florida","tag-fort-myers","tag-lee-county","tag-lee-county-school-board","tag-lee-county-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278872","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=278872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}