In addition to Athletic Director Otto Zeman, four other certified staff members, including two full-time teachers, were not rehired at Riverside-Brookfield High School when the District 208 school board met April 13.
The board also voted to grant tenure to 14 RB teachers and rehire 22 full-time teachers and 13 part-time teachers.
The cuts will save RB about $525,000, said District 208 Interim Superintendent David Bonnette, adding that the board will make further cuts among support staff and other part-timers next month.
“We’re looking closely at some other retirees, and also we have not dealt with the support staff at this point, Bonnette said. “We’re looking at an overall budgetary improvement, if you will, of around $925,000.”
That would reduce RB operating budget deficit for next year by about 40 percent, but still leave RB with an operating deficit of more than $1 million for the 2010-11 school year.
Board member Matt Sinde would like to see deeper cuts.
“To me one million was not enough,” said Sinde who said that he was looking for $2 million in cuts.
But Bonnette said that cutting $2 million would deeply affect the student experience at RB.
Among those officially released were two retirees, Marsha Hubbuch and Bill Jirkovsky, who had been working part time at RB since their retirement from full-time positions and whose departures had been expected for some time.
Hubbuch, a college counselor, has been working three days a week since retiring form full time work at RB two years ago. When she retired Hubbuch agreed to work part time for two more years so that she could finish advising students she had been assigned to when she was a full-time employee.
Hubbuch said that she had always planned on stopping work at RB when those students graduate as they will this June.
“I was working part time with my last group of seniors, and had every intention of retiring at the end of this year,” Hubbuch said.
Jirkovsky, a former social studies department chairman, has coordinated the high school’s annual Veterans Day ceremony and helped out with the Advanced Placement program.
At last November’s Veterans Day assembly, Bonnette presented a plaque to Jirkovsky recognizing his role in creating the annual program where veterans come to RB, are recognized at an assembly and then go to classrooms to talk with students. Jirkovsky received a standing ovation at the assembly.
In December Jirkovsky wrote the school board a letter thanking the school board for the recognition and the plaque. In his letter he made it clear that he would no longer be coordinating the Veterans Day program.
“I shall always look back with pride at my endeavors during my 37 years at RB,” Jirkovsky wrote.
The only full-time teachers to lose their jobs were Charlie Egner, who teaches social studies and English as a Second language, and Ann Kuenster, a physics teacher.
Bonnette said that these cuts were based on financial reasons rather than performance issues.
“They’re primarily financially motivated,” Bonnette said.
-Bob Skolnik
