The school board has had money issues for years. I totally agree with working4u, seniority should not count. Like the teacher that was all over the news a couple of years ago.
Our experience with the public school system was not good. We were told by the school principal to slow are daughter down because they didn’t want her ahead of the other students that they wanted them to all stay on the same level. With our other child who needed speech therepy, the speech teacher had him doing arts and crafts. When I questioned this I was told that it was a way to keep them busy while she done her paper work that Barton overloaded them with. Not a good answer..Yes a private school can be expensive. For us we made sacrifices such as No new cars and a tight budget to assure our kids received the education they deserved.After one year no speech therepy needed and the other continued at her own pace,Both have made honor roll. And no its not allowed as a tax deduction.But worth it anyway!!

I hate to see workers layed off. A couple of points that should be addressed.

If the school system was managed like a real company seniority would not mean didly squat when it came to lay offs. I dont care if you have been with a company for 20 years. The fat would be trimmed 1st and lay offs would go to the under performers, employees with attendance problems and etc. All that would have to be done would be to review the employee’s record. Those employees would be the 1st to go.

If you are an employee that in a position that must be eliminated you should be the employee to get layed off. You accepted that position. Who cares about your seniority? That is the way it is in the real workplace. It is totally unfair to eliminate a position and then lay off another employee in a valued position so a tenured employee does not get layed off.

WHAT A COMPLETE UNFAIR WAY TO TREAT WORKERS IN TODAYS WORKPLACE.

Too much finger pointing and not enough policy change.

I wonder what the UNION has to say about first year teachers staying because they are related to school board member (Fleet Belle) staying and letting the third year teachers stay.

My wife is a 4th grade teacher in her 3rd year. She would have had tenur next year. She is 28 years old and considered by the other to teachers to be an asset to her grade level. She was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year and has had a VERY hard year. She had surgery, completed chemotherapy, and just completed her radiation last week. She missed less than 20 days during all of this. Today, which by the way was her teacher appreciation day at school, she was told that her name was on the list. This crushed her! There are at least 3 teachers at her school that are in their very first year of teaching and are not on the list. We would like to know, was she let go becuase she will raise insurance premiums or what. I want to know who made the decisions! This does not make sense! We have had a very hard year...Thanks Mobile for standing behind your people !!!!!

Apparently they do not value the teachers at all. There are other ways to save money without firing teachers in the already overcrowded classrooms. I would be glad to do their financial management for them, if they can’t get it together!

I also question this list, as it is inaccurate, as some of those listed on this list are no longer in these positions. I do not understand why we need to eliminate teachers, when you can eliminate some of the pork at Barton, starting with the big pig himself, and his committee of piglets-oops-board members. How much does the board get paid? We know that our “esteemed” superintendant makes a MD’s salary, plus benefits.

Where does the money go, that I pay throughout the year for “fees” and other items? Do they see it in the classrooms? Believe me, if I could afford it, my children would go to private school, at least then I could deduct tuition from my taxes (if I am not mistaken), whereas the hundreds I spend on public ed is not deductible.