course and reinstates
11-month positions
Challenge by employees costs
one media specialist her job
FRHSD board reverses
course and reinstates
11-month positions
By dave benjamin
Staff Writer
Under a threat of legal action, the Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education has restored six media center specialists to their 11-month work schedule.
The change to a plan approved this spring that reduced six media center specialist positions to 10 months ended up costing one untenured staff member at Colts Neck High School her job.
The reduction in force of one 10-month staff member was made so that the six staff members who had been cut from 11 months to 10 could be moved back to 11 months.
The staff cut amounts to a $42,000 reduction in the district’s 2003-04 budget.
Superintendent of Schools James Wasser explained that prior to the board’s decision this spring to make all media center specialists 10-month positions, there were six 11-month media specialists and six 10-month media specialists at the district’s six high schools.
There will now be six 11-month positions and five 10-month positions.
Wasser said one non-tenured 10-month media specialist was let go "to comply with the commissioner’s approval of our budget, which said to cut that amount of money from that line item."
The superintendent explained that after the board changed the 11-month positions to 10-month positions, the affected media specialists filed an unfair labor practice charge.
"They decided to go through the union to say you can’t change their conditions of work," he said.
"As a result, since we cannot change the line items that the commissioner agreed with us to cut, and we have no flexibility on that, we have to cut what he said. The 11-month people will work their 19 days this summer, this year, from now until the beginning of school."
Wasser said there will be one 11-month media center specialist at Colts Neck and one 11-month media center specialist at Freehold Borough High School. One 10-month media center specialist will split time between Colts Neck and Freehold Borough, the district’s two smallest schools.
The superintendent noted that the other four district schools have about 2,000 students each, so they will have two media center employees at all times.
"It’s unfortunate we had to make cuts," the superintendent said. "There are people losing their jobs. Every day I talk to someone, their husband or wife or someone else does not have a job, no salary, no benefits."
Wasser said the plan approved in the spring was not to take away anyone’s job.
"We didn’t recommend taking anybody’s job," he said. "We took a piece of it, which was the summer month, to say, listen, we can’t afford to pay people in the summer."
The same plan also changed the number of hours for the guidance supervisors, six of whom had their jobs cut to 10-month positions. The savings in the guidance reduction was $50,000.
"We did that to the guidance people, too," Wasser said. "We have a guidance counselor working, handling scheduling, but we don’t have the supervisor there. There’s nothing I can do about it."
Wasser said the six guidance supervisors were also cut from the 11-month position to 10 months, but, "They didn’t contest anything. They were fine."
Wasser said he had one guidance counselor working during the summer to handle incoming registrants, scheduling problems and any other guidance issues that arose.
Laura Savage, president of the Freehold Regional High School District Teachers Association, could not be reached for comment.