The Springfield school board had earlier approved the reduction of over 40 positions for next school year. On Monday the board identified which specific workers may be without a job as a result. Dave Heinzel is one of them. The board voted to give him what's called a reduction in force notice. He oversees media production - and helps keep the district website up and running. Heinzul told the board the site helps students and teachers share information with each other and parents - and it needs constant attention: “No other third-party website that exists will let us do anything close to this ... Website technology though, right now, it’s not even evolving, it’s exploding. And we need to stay on top of it so we’re able to provide a consistent website tool that will allow teachers to do what they need to do," he said.
Also discussed at Monday's meeting, the school district could be violating Illinois school code if it goes forward with plans to cut all its elementary school librarians. Diana Riederer is one of those librarians and works at five schools. She raised questions about the board’s plan to rely on volunteers. “Volunteers staffing libraries in some schools, but not others and for varying amounts of time appears to disadvantage students in less affluent schools where adult volunteers may be harder to recruit,” she told the board. Interim Superintendent Bob Hill agreed that the action could go against rules laid out by the state, and blamed the hole in the budget. The district is looking to save over $5 million.
