Grand Rapids Public Schools said Monday evening that in 60 days, 26 administrators' contracts will not be renewed.
In February, all district administrators received pink slips as a warning. The Board of Education has approved giving pink slips to 26 of those administrators, nearly a fifth of the district's current administrative staff.
"I'm here this evening because as it stands right now, my contract is not being renewed," Carol Glanville, a three-year veteran of GRPS and an administrator that worked with technology within the district said at the Monday evening school board meeting. "Cutting these positions would be a giant step backwards for the district at a times when we need to be taking giant strides forward."
Superintendent Teresa Weatherall Neal said she agrees she needs someone to handle technology within the district, but not necessarily in Glanville's current position. She said the district needs to make cuts and rearrange its structure.
"We need to get the right people in the right positions to do the right work. It really is not personal. This is a lot of heavy lifting that we're doing in the district, and we need to have the right people in place to make sure that happens," she said.
GRPS currently has more than 150 administrators on staff -- more than every larger district in the state except Detroit. Neal said cutting that number is not a priority for the district.
"When you look at numbers, we may appear to have more administrators. We have a needier population. And we have the positions that we need, and those that we don't, we're going to create and we're going to fill and that will involve bringing more talent into the district," Neal said.
Neal said of the 26 people whose contract won't be renewed, some people will be reassigned within the district. She did not immediately know how many administrators will be cut from the total number, or how many of those administrators who received notice were retiring anyway. She said not a significant number of the 26 were retiring anyway.
And Neal said more cuts may be coming before June 15 but there are not plans to cut a specific number of staff, so the final number of administrators is unknown.
Neale said she has made it very clear since the beginning of her tenure that not everyone is going to stay with the district as the district's transformation plan -- expected to save the school $22 million over five years -- takes effect.
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