Last night the District 205 School Board made around 80 job cuts and reductions in hours.
Before the board voted to finalized this section of $2.6 million in total cuts of yearly spending, a public hearing for community members to give testimony regarding the layoffs.
Fourteen speakers came to the podium over the course of 70 minutes including parents, current students and teachers, graduates and retired teachers.
From the elimination of stipends for club supervisors, to getting rid of the Bright Futures parent coordinator, to the layoff of 16 teachers, speakers talked up the importance of almost every individual and program that was directly effected by last night’s vote.
Joel McKillip, the parent of three district students raised a common criticism leveled, that cuts were being made and that few of those seemed to touch administration.
“I’ve read through the agenda for tonight’s meeting,” McKillip said. “Why were there no cuts to the administration’s salary, benefits or staff.”
In fact the one administrator that lost one of her positions, Director of Curriculum Tammie Bolden got up to advocate for administrators taking a administrative pay freeze.
“If the administrators in this district took a freeze we would save almost $100,000,” Bolden says. “Just a freeze, not even a cut.”
Galesburg Police were on scene, according to Superintendent Ralph Grimm to be “sure the board was able to conduct their business in an orderly fashion.”
