MANSFIELD — A divided Mansfield City School Board of Education Tuesday approved ending several administrative contracts in less than a week.
With a 3-2 vote, the board suspended several administrative contracts, effective March 31, citing the district’s financial situation.
During the same meeting, the board unanimously abolished 62 non-administrative positions (equivalent to 57 full-time positions) across the district, effective at the end of the school year.
Those positions included teachers, intervention specialists and a few others.
Board members Chris Elswick, Linda Golden and Leslie Ward voted to suspend contracts of several administrators, including personnel director Mark Wilcheck, district behavior analyst Dahni Reynolds, EMIS coordinator Annette Smith and central registration agent Melinda Hood.
Eight administrative assistants at the district’s central office will also be out-of-work on March 31, including three in personnel/human resources, one in academic services, one in pupil services (special education) and two in the treasurer/accounts payable department.
Board members Gary Feagin and Jennifer Kime voted against terminating the contracts early. Both said they had expected the board to discuss the timeline for the administrative suspensions prior to a vote.
“If you felt there was some discussion you wanted to have, you could have called anybody and asked,” Elswick said to Feagin during a brief exchange.
After the meeting, Kime said she would have liked more transparency and open communication among board members.
“Those contracts were cut off before the end of their contract year and the concern was just notification for administrators, giving them a chance to get insurance and things like that,” Kime said. “Some have been in the district 20-some years.”
One suspended employee, Wilcheck, was set to retire on Aug. 1.
Elswick said keeping the contracts in place until the end of the year would have generated unnecessary salary costs and exposed the district, which self-funds its health insurance plan, to months of additional liability for those staff members’ claims.
Elswick also said the eliminated positions are thosee included in a deficit reduction plan the board submitted to the state last month. That plan outlined staff cuts, but did not assume savings until the 2025-2026 school year.
“We have to do this,” Elswick said. “Somebody has to make tough decisions and has to make sure the district is not going to be taken over by the state.”
Elswick said the board may vote on a contract to outsource the work of the human resources department at some point.
For now, those responsibilities are being absorbed internally. Supt. Stan Jefferson said he will be playing “a major role” in the work.
Board votes 5-0 to scrap nearly 60 non-administrative positions, mostly teachers
The board’s vote on non-administrative personnel doesn’t mean 62 people will involuntarily lose their jobs.
Brad Strong, president of the Mansfield School Employees Association, said he expects a total of nine people will be out of work at the end of the RIF process.
That’s because as of Tuesday, approximately 18 staff members are set to retire, nine are planning to resign and 21 will be non-renewed because they are working on temporary licensures.
Strong said procedurally, the district can’t renew contracts for those working with temporary licenses, but some of those positions will need to be refilled.
“Certainly all the intervention specialists will be,” he said. “Some of those folks may be able to get another temporary license or may be able to get some supplemental license to be able to come back.”
Some jobs on the RIF list include part-time positions teaching classes like art, music and physical education at Mansfield Spanish Immersion and Springmill STEM.
Strong said those positions will be reworked into a single teaching position for each subject split among the two schools.
What is an intervention specialist?
Intervention specialists, also known as special education teachers, work with students who have disabilities or special needs. Intervention specialists might work with students one-on-one, in a small group or regular classroom setting.
Intervention specialists are often charged with assessing and evaluating students, modifying curriculum and instruction to meet their needs and collaborating with teachers to provide specially designed instruction that allows students with disabilities to meet their goals.
Jefferson and Strong thanked the administration and union for their cooperation throughout the RIF process.
“It’s always a painful process. You’re losing good people,” Jefferson said.
“At the end of the day, your staffing is going to be based off of your enrollment,” Jefferson added. “These are adjustments that needed to be done and we still will continue to look at cost-saving measures in the district.”
Strong said class sizes will go up some, but he doesn’t expect many to hit the contractual limit of a 25-student maximum.
“I think we’ll be in the low 20s in most of our classrooms,” he said.
The board also voted 5-0 to approve a one-year memorandum of understanding with the MSEA. The MOU will roll over the union’s existing contract and benefits for one year.
Strong and district administrators said the MOU will allow both sides to come back to the negotiating table in a year with a better understanding of how recent staff changes will impact the district and its finances.
“With the major upheaval we’re at right now, we thought it’d be best,” Strong said. “Going into full negotiations is probably not the wisest thing for either side of us to do.”
Strong said a union vote on the MOU garnered 94.4 percent support from members.
