ROARING SPRING - Spring Cove school board members voted to furlough four full-time and one part-time teacher Monday evening.
But two of those teachers could possibly find themselves back on the payroll because of teacher retirements, Superintendent Rodney Green said.
The board laid off full-time teachers: Paul G. Frederick, alternative education; Ginger L. Claar, business education; Patricia R. Leonard, foreign language; and Marsha D. Hoover, elementary; and part-time teacher, Kathie E. Nogle, English as a Second Language.
Spring Cove Education Association President John Fitzpatrick said he did not have a comment on the furloughs early Monday evening before the board held a special meeting prior to its committee of the whole meeting in the Spring Cove Elementary School.
The board plans to vote on its preliminary 2011-12 budget containing more than $1.8 million in cuts and program reductions and no tax increase at its next meeting at 7 p.m. May 16.
The budget will be displayed for 30 days, and the board could make changes at any time until the budget is formally adopted in June.
Fitzpatrick said the union has not received a response from the school board since it asked board members to "stop political posturing" and reconsider a wage freeze proposed to the district in April.
Green said there has been no additional discussion on the matter, and it was "pretty much a dead issue at this point."
As a result of the furloughs, the district could replace the full-time alternative education teacher with a half-time family consumer science teacher, replace the middle school business teacher with a business and computer applications teacher from the high school, move middle school foreign language staff to the high school, increase class size at the elementary schools, and make English as a Second Language a districtwide program.
The board also accepted two more retirements at the end of the 2010-11 school year - learning support teacher Maureen Detwiler and elementary teacher Candace Hoover.
Mirror Staff Writer Amanda Clegg is at 949-7030.
