Bill Strong has lots of books to read and carpentry projects to work on...but he'd rather be teaching this fall.

It’s been a long and anxious summer for teachers in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.  The need to cut $100 million to deal with the state budget crisis has cost the public school district money for things like field trips and supplies, forced delays in building plans, and jeopardized funding for middle school athletics.  More reductions may be on the way.

Teachers and staff are bearing the brunt of cuts. The Charlotte Observer reported in July that of the 1,175 people who lost their jobs in the school district due to budget reductions, almost 57 percent were teachers.

For schools serving Davidson, these reductions have resulted in lay-off notices for at least 17, transfers for several assistant principals and a tense time of waiting to see whether a job will be available when school opens Aug. 25.

Read on for more about whose jobs were cut, who is transferring where, and how cuts are being managed by the four local CMS schools: Davidson Elementary, Davidson IB Middle, Bailey Middle and North Mecklenburg High.

“These are trying times,” conceded Dr. Monique Gardner-Witherspoon, the Area Superintendent for the CMS North Learning Community. “But we are committed to delivery. We’ll have to do just as much with less.”

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL CHANGES

Three of the four local CMS schools have had their assistant principal positions reduced. The fourth, Bailey Middle, may have been able to keep its two  (Stacey Wood and Denita Newby) this time around because it lost an assistant principal at the start of the 2008-09 school year.

At Davidson Elementary, Charles Copeland has transferred voluntarily to work at Allenbrook Elementary in Charlotte. This is the same school that former DES principal Celeste Ellis transferred to in the spring, as part of an effort by CMS to move principals from high achieving sites to schools that are struggling. That means Davidson Elementary will now have only one assistant principal, Laney Edwards.

Davidson IB Middle, meanwhile, will no longer have an assistant principal at all. Marshall Gore, who has been at the school since February 2008, has been moved to Piedmont Open IB Middle. In his place at Davidson IB, Jaime Tecza will serve in the new position of Dean of Students.

What does the job title change imply?

“It means he’ll be paid less to do the same job,” stated Dr. Jo Karney, the principal at Davidson IB.

North Meck High dropped from four to two AP positions. Principal Joey Burch said halving the number of assistants at his school “presents many challenges.”

Staying at North Meck are Kevin Binkley and Joyce Lockhart. Gone are Robert Cox and Deardre Gibson.

Ms. Gibson was moved down the street to Ranson Middle, where she will be an assistant principal.

Dr. Cox is heading to the Marie G. Davis Military and Global Leadership Academy in Charlotte. After 12 years at North Meck, and a career of 42 years in education, Dr. Cox was told of his reassignment in July, the day before all assistant principals were scheduled to start a month of unpaid vacation.

“I was just shocked,” he said during a phone conversation as he was being fitted for a uniform, part of his new job at a military academy.

The Global Leadership Academy is expanding into a 6-11 grade school, with plans to add a senior class for the 2010-2011 school year. Now that he is adjusting to his new role in a new kind of school, Dr. Cox said he is looking forward to the change.

“It’s the procedure and the way I was notified that I found to be so unprofessional,” he said. “Other than that, it will be a great move.”

DAVIDSON ELEMENTARY

The start of a new school year will bring many changes for Davidson Elementary. It will have a new principal, Terry Hall, who started July 1 (stay tuned for a DavidsonNews.net profile of Ms. Hall coming soon), but it will also be missing several familiar faces from its teaching staff.

Budget cuts mean teachers will be without four of their classroom assistants, although more details about how the school will adjust to that change are not yet available. Also laid off was Nicole Beebe, a third-grade teacher who served as a long-term substitute for a teacher who left CMS.

“We’re going to get her back if we can,” said Ms. Hall of Ms. Beebe, adding that students are still registering, making it hard to know exactly how many classroom teachers will be needed in the fall.

Jen Faulkenberry switched to part-time after the birth of her son, Will, a change that put her into a category subject to layoffs this spring.

Another loss for the school  is art teacher Jen Faulkenberry, who switched to part-time after the birth of her son, now 3 years old. That move put Ms. Faulkenberry into a category targeted for budget cuts this spring.  She learned at the end of the school year that she was laid off from her position as one of two art teachers at Davidson Elementary.

“Just the thought of not being there with my students next year crushed me,” Ms. Faulkenberry said.

She endured an anxious start to her summer, sought interviews for other jobs, and said that she and her family just hoped things would work out. In late July, Ms. Faulkenberry was hired by Hopewell High, where she will join a staff of eight art teachers and will likely teach art history and crafts.

“I was beyond elated when I received news that I had gotten the full-time art position at Hopewell that I had interviewed for,” she said. “I am eager to work for Dr. Louise Jones and her great staff. So from a Tiger to a Titan I go.”

Ms. Faulkenberry plans to continue to offer summer art camps in Davidson, together with her colleague, Kristen Ratnofsky.

At Davidson Elementary, Ms. Faulkenberry’s work will be taken over by Evelyn VanHecke, who will divide her classroom time between DES and Davidson IB Middle, where Ms. VanHecke has been the art teacher for several years.

DAVIDSON IB MIDDLE

Davidson IB is the smallest school in the Davidson area, serving only about 240 students in grades 6-8, and saw only one teacher laid off this spring: Ashley Stasko, an interim replacement for 7th grade language arts. Ms. Stasko was a substitute for Andrea Reimers, who was on maternity leave and will be returning to the school in the fall.

Dr. Karney said Davidson IB has made a number of adjustments in the face of budget cuts.

“We’ve had to finagle things,” she said.

BAILEY MIDDLE

At Bailey Middle, the newest school in the area, having opened in 2006 and now serving about 1,200 students, three teachers were laid off due to budget cuts: Spanish teacher Greta Qualls, math teacher Desiree Taylor and social studies teacher Casey Roberts.

Principal Jennifer Dean said the cuts were due to, in one case, a license deficiency, and in the other two, non-renewal of short-term contracts.

NORTH MECK HIGH

Of the four CMS schools serving Davidson, North Meck High took the biggest hit, losing seven teachers. Gone from the staff roster this spring are:

• Phys-ed teacher and athletic director Leroy Holden
• Social Studies teacher Bill Strong
• Math teacher Carroll Mizelle
• English teacher Diane Maye
• Science teacher Aleck Williams
• Choral music teacher Cedric Meekins
• Behavior Modification Technician Pamela Brandon

The cuts were due to a variety of reasons, such as staffing position changes and short-term contracts that won’t be renewed. Four of the six – Mr. Holden, Mr. Strong, Mr. Mizelle and Ms. Maye – fell under the category of retired in-state teachers who returned to the classroom (out-of-state returned retirees were not subject to cuts).

“I’m one of the double dippers,” said Mr. Strong from his home in Davidson. Mr. Strong knew that his job was on the line when CMS administrators recommended cutting returned retirees during budget discussions in April.

“I felt like there was a target on my back,” he said.

A North Meck alum, having graduated from the school in 1967, Mr. Strong taught near his alma mater, at Alexander Middle, for 22 years, and then spent another 16 back at North Meck. He developed a passion for a class called “Theory of Knowledge,” part of the core curriculum for seniors in the International Baccalaureate program. When he retired in the winter of 2007, Mr. Strong returned to the classroom six months later in part so that he could keep teaching “Theory of Knowledge.”

He is one of only five in the school district who are trained to teach the class, and that specialization is what he hoped would allow him to keep doing what he loved – talking about Euclidean geometry and art history and the like.

He learned the Thursday before graduation that he had been laid off, receiving a formal letter that ends “you are eligible for rehire.”  His CMS e-mail has since been disconnected.

He said he has stacks of books he needs to read and several carpentry projects to work on at his home on Walnut Street. However, he’d rather be teaching.

“I plan to be somewhere else on Aug. 25,” he said, referring to the start of the new school year. “I’m not going to want to watch the buses go by.”