EAST ORANGE, NJ — The East Orange School District Had another half day on Fridayas it faces a $25 million deficit and massive layoffs that will begin in two months.
The Education Council voted to eliminate 93 positionsincluding Spanish and substitute teachers, literacy and math coaches and social workers. Of these 93 positions, 71 are teachers, according to officials.
East Orange Mayor Ted Green discussed the situation Friday and said the new superintendent discovered the shortage, and now everyone is pitching in to help.
“I think it’s a mistake. Sometimes when you have people in the office and there are mistakes, and then someone comes in and starts dotting the i’s and crossing the i’s and sifting through the fine print, that’s a mistake. I believe we have to get better at that,” he told CBS News New York.
East Orange’s superintendent discovers a major shortage
East Orange School District Superintendent Dr. Chris Irving, who has only been in office for three months, says the district has spent more than budgeted for this school year.
Irving says the district was $6 to $8 million short this year, but the deficit has now reached $25 million. He says that if cuts are not made, they will no longer be able to make payroll payments in May or June.
“We didn’t, quite frankly, do our due diligence to understand what the financial realities were once we started the school year,” Irving said.
Some teachers say they have never seen anything like this in the industry in more than two decades. One teacher said she was hired before the school year but is now out of a job.
The East Orange community is being blindsided by budget cuts
Parents were also shocked because their children still have to go to school for half a day.
‘Make sure this makes sense. Where’s the money?’ a parent asked outside the school on Friday. ‘The mayor has to answer a lot of questions, a lot of them. You see new parks being built, you see these high-rises going up, and you see this already terrible school system collapsing even further.”
“They beat up teachers, and the kids need these teachers. The kids look up to these teachers, and they have a lot of things they’re going through at home, and the teachers are sometimes a psychiatrist,” another parent added. “Removing a mentor as such would only be harmful to the children.”
The superintendent said schools needed a half day as many families and teachers are mentally exhausted by the ordeal.
