Hillsborough County Public Schools, the third largest school district in the state of Florida, will have to lay off 1,000 employees due to budget shortfalls caused by cuts made by Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, WTVT Fox 13 News in Tampa Bay reports.
“We’re going to be able to save a lot of jobs through attrition. Every year, in Hillsborough County we hire on average a thousand employees every summer. I already have the district’s word that no employee will be hired outside the district until every one of our employees has a job for next year,” Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association president Rob Kriete said.
The district, which serves more than 200,000 students and includes the Tampa metro area, originally planned to axe 2,000 employees, but was able to minimize the job losses. Most of the eliminated positions will come from teachers and paraprofessional employees.
“We’ve tried to make adjustments, but we keep battling the state funding and it’s going to be continuous,” board vice-chair Dr. Stacy Hahn said.
The cuts will result in larger class sizes and they hit when morale is low among school employees who received little support from the state to adjust to online education systems required during the pandemic.