Sarasota superintendent: District working to find spots for unassigned teachers

Sarasota has remained an “A” rated school district for 22 years academically, but over the last year, the district is facing a new financial reality. 

With the roles of 136 teachers now considered “unassigned,” the district is in the process of realigning its staff, says Superintendent Terry Connor.

Connor says the unassigned roles include 99 staff members in probationary roles and 37 in annual contract roles, with staff contracts set to expire on June 30. 

“We want to continue to work with them,” he said during an April 7 school board workshop. “We believe that most of them are going to find places right back here in Sarasota County, and we're going to work as hard to get every one of them back in if we can.”

He said the district is not currently hiring externally.

Connor said about 85% of the district’s budget of about $1.36 billion involves staffing. 

According to the district’s website, for the next school year, school staffing is set to decrease by 6%, with district staffing decreasing by 9% and district administrative jobs decreasing by 14%. 

Connor said that a confluence of factors was involved in the status of these instructional roles.

“Whether it be declining enrollment, birth rates, school choice, options outside of the traditional public school, all of those things are contributing to school districts facing some of these financial constraints,” he said.

Conversation among school board members also turned to the topic of one-time funding that was used to fund staff positions.

That includes about $115 million in pandemic relief funding that was provided to the district.

Board Chair Bridget Ziegler said she wanted the district to implement a policy that “puts some conditions in there, whether it be an acknowledgement, whether it be certain provisions, that limit non-recurring funds being used to create new positions.

“I'll put that out there, but I think because it plays a big role into where we are to potentially prevent a future situation like this, and again, I reiterate this is not a mismanagement per se, this is when you have districts that are facing similar if not far worse situations financially and with positions,” she said.

Board member Tom Edwards said he was under the impression that most, if not all of the positions funded with non-reoccurring dollars had been eliminated in the current budget. 

“That is specific to the 67 districts, because we are not the only district that is experiencing financial difficulties because of the voucher program,” he said, referring to Florida’s 67 school districts.

He acknowledged he thought the policy was “not a bad idea.”

“I don't have a problem with the transparency of that policy initiative,” he said. “I’m also not a fan of putting constraints on the superintendent, so it's a delicate line that we're walking on to make sure that it's transparent, it's communicated, it's clear regardless of the superintendent's tenure.”

Edwards later said he was also concerned about the issue of student enrollment being undercounted by the state. He said he hoped to get costs “not just from what Tallahassee is giving us, but what it actually costs to educate a lot of our students.”

Board member Robyn Marinelli said she thought some guard rails needed to be in place in regards to funding. 

“I don't know when those guard rails fell apart for whatever reason,” she said. “I’m not going to go back and question previous superintendents because they bring their own style, but who would have ever thought with the Covid relief dollars that so much money would be piled on with very little time to go through all those things, where then you add positions and then, do we know if they really even worked? Some it looks like those dollars really didn’t have a long-term effect.”

Connor said that some policy revisions would be provided to ensure “the flexibility but also the accountability, so that people understand," and said the district was still undergoing an adjustment.

“It was an unprecedented time per se, and to no fault of any school district that was layering on supports to address learning recovery, to address mental health, whatever, all of the fallout that occurred during those times, and so we're going now through this correction period, right?” he said.

He said the district had a focus on sustaining Pre-K, to which 48 positions had COVID-19 relief funding allocated, out of 182 staff positions.

However, he said that during this round of budgeting, positions that had remained on the books in the past, at a time when the district needed an immediate solution, were now being addressed.

“One of the things that is so upsetting, just on human nature, is people having an expectation that maybe they're in a role they thought was perpetual and now it's not, and then they're surprised about that, and there should be no surprises, and so having procedurals establish something to make sure that doesn't happen is important,” he said.