13 teachers accept offer to leave district

BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer

Thirteen teachers have decided to accept a separation of services agreement that had been offered to all staff members by the Freehold Borough Board of Education.

The Freehold Borough School District has three schools and an approximate enrollment of about 1,400 pupils.

The acceptance of the separation of services agreement by the current employees will free up approximately $340,000 that will be used for new teacher positions, current salaries and to bring back some positions that had been cut in the 2007-08 budget.

The teachers who accepted the separation of services agreement are Sharon Berenson, Leslie Daley, Kathy Denison, Lynn Ducker, Chris Giunta, Shelia Hirschfield, Maureen Landosky, Susan Lattman, Diane Shapiro, Ken Speer, Sue Summers, Rita Weitzner and Corliss Welch.

According to school board President Jim Keelan, the separation of services agreement was available to any staff member and offered credit for unused sick leave that is capped and then paid out over a period of three or four years.

Although the deal was offered to anyone in the district regardless of their age or the length of time they worked in Freehold, many of those who accepted the incentive are veteran teachers with a great deal of time invested in Freehold's schools, according to Business Administrator Veronica Wolf.

"We offered a plan to pay per diem for unused sick days up to a maximum of 90 days," the business administrator said.

Wolf said anyone who accepted the buyout offer is eligible to work in another school district if they choose to do so. She said many of the Freehold Borough employees who accepted the offer were contemplating retirement in the near future.

According to Wolf, school administrators took the salaries of the people who accepted the buyout offer and added the cost of those employees' benefits to the amount. They then figured the cost of a replacement teacher plus benefits. The difference in the two columns - old vs. new - came to $340,000.

The money owed to the teachers who accepted the buyout will be paid over a period of time, according to Wolf.

She said that as the years progress and new teachers acquire tenure, the amount of savings will change. New teachers may also opt to sign up for family benefits when they receive tenure, changing the figure further.

For now, however, the separation of services agreement that was accepted by 13 staff members will free up money the school district needs to provide today's students with opportunities for success.

According to Wolf, $115,000 of the $340,000 difference will immediately be applied toward salaries.

"We had a reduction in our No Child Left Behind Title I allocation. Besides using the Title I money for required items, we anticipated using the money for salaries. Because of that shortfall, we will take the $115,000 and apply it to salaries," Wolf explained.

Two new physical education and health teachers, one for the Park Avenue Elementary School and one for the Freehold Intermediate School, will be hired in order to be compliant with New Jersey core curriculum standards. In addition, administrators will increase a half-time world language teacher to full-time and restore fourth and fifth grade teaching positions that were eliminated in the original budget.

The budget for the 2007-08 school year totaled $16.7 million prior to an announcement by state representatives last week that an additional $550,000 in state funding would be provided to the district.

When asked if offering the buyout plan to employees had been prompted by the school district's present budgetary constraints, Wolf said that was the reason it was offered. She said the idea to offer a separation of services agreement to employees was suggested by state education administrators as one way of coping with the realities of the budget.

Wolf said Freehold Borough has received more than 800 resumes from teachers. She said the district held a job fair on June 9 at which time previously screened applicants were invited to be interviewed. Some of the applicants were asked to teach a demonstration lesson while school was still in session.

Wolf said there are many teachers seeking work at the present time due to many factors, including the fact that many school districts have been forced to reduce their teaching staff. She said the market is flooded right now with elementary teachers.