Staffing cuts continue at School City of Hammond.
The personnel report approved by the school board Tuesday includes the elimination of five district media specialists, seven recess aides and two media technician paraprofessionals. Eight student support specialists and a social worker are also being let go, due to the end of federal ESSER funding. The district has largely been able to avoid laying off classroom teachers, since a number of them are leaving voluntarily.
Superintendent Scott Miller said he doesn't like making cuts, but the district has to bring spending in line with the money that's available. "They're real people," Miller said. "They're real souls, and they're serving our kids. We're taking 200 people and their 30 to 40 hours worth of output a week out of our school community. It's horrible. Yeah, I agree! Closing schools is horrible. Nobody up here likes any of this."
Additionally, several administrators are being reassigned or transferred. That includes the director of the Hammond Arts & Performance Academy (HAPA), a move that drew criticism from board member Carlotta Blake-King.
"One thing HAPA does, it helps children with critical thinking, and that particular program brings kids to school when they wouldn't come otherwise," Blake-King said.
Miller explained that the plan going forward is to have a teacher at Morton and a teacher at Hammond Central spend part of their day directing the program, while teaching fewer classes. "You yourself have said we've had too many district administrators," Miller told Blake-King.
"Now, come on, Mr. Miller," Blake-King replied. "You know I fought like a dog for HAPA, so don't even go there."
School board member Cindy Murphy said that while she loves HAPA, she also wants to address concerns from the head of the math department. "We're not teaching enough algebra to our middle school students," Murphy said. "We're not getting them into the right classes. We're not running calculus, and now we don't have a physics teacher over at Hammond Central. These are things we also have to take care of."
Blake-King ultimately voted against Tuesday's personnel report. She wanted to see Miller take more responsibility for the district's financial struggles, and she complained that students and teachers were taking the brunt, while the top administrators haven't taken pay cuts.
"And that's criminal, and that's grounds for termination!" Blake-King added.
"It is not criminal," Miller interrupted. "You don't get to call me a criminal."
Blake-King also accused Miller of not doing enough to support last year's failed referendum attempt. Additionally, she urged families to file Freedom of Information Act requests to see the personnel report for themselves, even though it's already publicly available on the school board's BoardDocs platform.
