Kettering to lose up to 13 teaching positions

As many as 13 teaching positions will be eliminated at Kettering City Schools this summer — eight of them at Kettering Middle School — as a result of state budget cuts.

Superintendent Jim Schoenlein said teachers in those positions will be moved within the district, and that he does expect any teachers to be laid off due to this restructuring.

“It will depend on how many people retire,” he said, noting around 20 to 25 teachers retire from the district each year.

“We fully expect that all of our of people will have jobs.”

In addition to the eight positions at KMS, Van Buren Middle School will lose one position, Kettering Fairmont High School will lose one to two positions, and the elementary schools as a whole will lose one to two positions.

Schoenlein said the reason KMS is taking the biggest hit is because it has the lowest average class size, at 23.5 kids per class overall. In its seventh- and eighth-grade classes, the average is just 21.5. By comparison, Van Buren averages 28.5 kids per class overall.

Schoenlein said the district has taken an $8.5 million hit from state funding cuts , largely due to the  tangible personal property tax.

He said employees saved the district $6 million last year by agreeing to a contract that freezes base salaries for three years.

“That was a huge boost to our fiscal situation,” he said.

The elimination of positions this summer is expected to yield about $2 million, and the district also will trim about $150,000 from technology, $150,000 from textbook purchases and $200,000 from utilities, to make up for the total loss.