Jun 7, 2018 5 min read

WAYNESBURG – The number of Central Greene School District teachers being furloughed may have come as a shock to both educators and the community alike, but Superintendent Helen McCracken said it illustrates the dire financial situation the district is facing.

“At some point, you have to be realistic about what’s going on and respond to that,” she said. “At this time, last night is what it looks like for the district.”

Central Greene School District Board voted Tuesday night to eliminate 26 teaching positions. Twenty-three teachers and five support staff members will lose their jobs.

McCracken said Wednesday that prior to her arrival at the school district last year, the board previously discussed the need for future furloughs and that they had been delayed at least twice. Had incremental cuts been made prior to last night, she said, such a large number would not have been necessary all at once.

“I assume they were trying to avoid what was inevitable,” she said. “Eventually, reality had to set in.”

The loss of coal mining in the area and population decreases have been stark.

About $500,000 in revenue previously garnered from coal mines within the district’s boundaries have been lost in the last year. Raising taxes up to the inflationary index would cover that loss, but McCracken said losses of $800,000 could be possible within the next four years, and actual figures could be even higher than those projections. There are about 4,000 acres of minable area in the district, 800 of which could be lost in the next four years at an estimate of about $10,000 an acre.

“In my view since coming to this office, I have been made extremely clear by my experiences that the population … has been declining and the coal industry is also declining, to the point that it will be gone in the very near future,” McCracken said. “I think it’s a logical fallout in the decline in enrollment and the decline of the population in general in this area.”

McCracken also thinks the community was aware of the financial situation the district was in.

“I would think they would know. I was told they had known. It appeared to me that people didn’t act like they knew last night,” she said of the community reaction at the board meeting.

Though McCracken herself admitted that even before taking over as superintendent, as a taxpayer living in the district herself, she was “not clear on the fragile state of the economy as it affects our school district,” and she has a clearer picture now.

“All those decisions that were made last night were difficult and heartbreaking for everyone,” McCracken said, but the district has “to live within our means.”

McCracken said she cannot focus on the past and is “dealing with the realities as I find them.”

Melissa Brant, Central Greene Education Association’s union president, said that many questions remain after the board’s decision.

“This is a very sad day in the history of Central Greene,” Brant said. “Today is like a morgue around here.”

Brant is unsatisfied with the explanation the district provided at the meeting, citing drops in district population and student enrollment, about 20 percent in the last decade. McCracken said Tuesday night with the coal industry moving out of the district, so too would jobs and people.

But Brant argued that the district’s current financial situation cannot all come down to the decline in coal mining.

“How can you sit and say you were not prepared for the loss of coal?” she said.

She called the cuts a “massacre” to staff, especially at the elementary and middle school levels. School officials began Wednesday informing those affected by the cuts whether their positions were being eliminated.

Brant said she and union officials would be independently investigating the district’s finances.

“We’re going to get the answers that we need,” she said.

Brant asked at the meeting about other cost-saving measures the district looked at before eliminating teacher positions. McCracken said Wednesday the district had planned to begin a $14 million middle school building project prior to her arrival, which was pushed by former superintendent Brian Uplinger, but moving forward now is unlikely.

“I don’t know that it can ever happen, to be honest. We might need to come up with other options and continue to monitor our enrollment,” McCracken said.

Supplies for students and teachers have also previously been reduced, and McCracken said she would continue to look at those figures with the business manager.

Brant questioned the decision to purchase land near the Zimmerman Drive campus in 2015 that the board had anticipated using to build a middle school. There currently are no plans for the land.

Brant also raised issues with administrative pay raises and taxes owed to the district by a now-bankrupt coal company, money that had already been budgeted.

Teacher cuts totaled two first-grade teachers, two second-grade teachers, one third-grade teacher, one fourth-grade teacher, one fifth-grade teacher, an elementary learning support teacher, a family and consumer science teacher at the middle school, one middle school art teacher, one library position, three middle school English/language arts positions, two middle school math positions, three middle school science positions, three middle school social studies positions and four special education teachers, one at the middle school and three at the high school.

Other positions cut include the district carpenter, director of maintenance, five aides, high school secretary, high school food service assistant/elementary library secretary. The board created a building secretary/food service assistant role at the high school.