TAMPA, Fla. — Hillsborough County‘s new school superintendent, Addison Davis, announced there will be more than 100 jobs eliminated at the district ahead of the next school year.
And, he says, the cuts probably won’t end there.
“My job and role and responsibility is to protect schools,” Davis said Wednesday, just hours after informing the school board of his intentions.
Davis says he was hired to do a job and he’s doing it, faced with unknown budget cuts due to COVID-19 and challenges the virus presents when it comes to safely returning to the classroom.
“My job is also to make certain that everyone from the district level understands their role to remove transactional supports to real transformational supports and empowering our teachers and our support professionals and our leaders to do great things every day for our children,” Davis said.
To do that, Davis informed the school board on Tuesday that he plans to reduce staff, including supervisors, management positions, technicians, engineers and more.
So far, no teachers will be let go.
“As it relates to job cuts, 129 jobs yesterday, which is around $7.5 million. The question was is it going to impact teachers? All the cuts that we identified last night were at the district level or phase one,” he said.
Hillsborough’s teacher’s union says Davis values and understands the need for classroom instruction, and they were glad to hear, for now, their jobs had been spared.
“Because he knows that we currently and will need teachers to help meet the needs of the kids,” said Rob Kriete, President of the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association. “So, that at least makes us feel good knowing that that’s where the focus has to be is the classroom teacher. Because they are the ones that are making it happen.”
Still, Davis made no promises about future phases, or whose jobs might ultimately be affected.
“Do we have more to go? The answer is yes,” Davis said. “So, as we learn and better understand roles and responsibility in organizational impact, we will continue to make informed decisions.”
Davis also says he plans to create a network that will focus on the district’s 29 D- and F- rated schools.
To do that, he’s expected to bring aboard several of his former coworkers from the Clay and Duval county school systems.
An announcement on those appointments is expected later this week.
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