About 100 parents, teachers and others protested Thursday morning outside the DeKalb County School District’s Stone Mountain headquarters against teacher and staff furloughs being proposed to offset budget shortfalls expected due to the coronavirus pandemic.
At issue is the fact that teachers stand to lose about $30 million from the furloughs at the same time the district is making its first payment toward a settlement on a teacher retirement fund abruptly discontinued a decade ago. That first payment is approximately $27.5 million.
No other metro Atlanta school district is considering furloughs for its staff. School board members met Monday to consider the annual budget, but delayed voting until 10 a.m. Friday to give district officials more time to consider other cost savings options.
“It looks like the budget uses nine furlough days to repay the debt for the (teacher retirement fund),” said Kamaria Shauri, who teaches seventh grade at Peachtree Middle School. “They took my retirement fund and now they want me to pay it back with furlough days. That is immoral.”
The crowd gathered along Mountain Industrial Boulevard in front of the school district’s headquarters. Many held signs with messages for the school board, including “Value Your Educators,” and “Just Say No to Furlough.”
Rosemary Gorham, parent of an incoming freshman at Dunwoody High School, said she was at the protest to support teachers. School district officials need to know the proposed budget likely would push great teachers out of the district, she said.
“The motto is putting students first,” she said. “They’re not putting students first. They’re driving away great teachers with incompetence. They’re putting money first.”
District officials have proposed a $1.143 billion budget that, among other things, includes nine furlough days for district staff, saving approximately $30.5 million through teacher furloughs and $5.5 million from central office staff furloughs.
“The furlough days are an issue for me,” board vice chairwoman Vickie B. Turner said. “They are and they have been from the beginning.”
Furlough days were last used by the district as it worked through budget shortfalls amid the recession 10 years ago. In 2013, the district found itself about $14 million in debt amid the recession and issues with mismanagement, which saw then-Gov. Nathan Deal remove six members of the then nine-member board.
“We were broke, busted and disgusted,” board member Joyce Morley said.
The budget also calls for additional cleaning and disinfecting supplies to use when school buildings return to use and $10 million specifically for additional instructional support amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Superintendent Cheryl Watson-Harris said her staff was looking all available avenues to balance a budget while maintaining a reserve balance of more than $100 million. This is a priority for the board, as future forecasts suggest revenue shortfalls related to the coronavirus may continue several years.
“The team has reviewed every available option to us,” Watson-Harris said.
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