The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
About five dozen students and parents, carrying posters and chanting, spoke Friday for the Allatoona High School teachers whose contracts won’t be renewed next term because of budget cutbacks.
They waved hand-made signs. They whooped and chanted “save our teachers” and cheered when passing cars honked. It was a peaceful demonstration held before classes started.
“We want to be the voice for them,” said Hope Manning, whose two children attend 2-year-old Allatoona.
Four of 15-year-old Ryan Manning’s eight teachers lost their jobs, including one who teaches physics and another who teaches history. Her daughter, Ashley, will lose her soccer coach.
“I believe this is a proper way to fight for our school and to fight for our teachers,” Ashley Manning, 16, said while standing in front of her school . “We had a lot of cuts and most of our coaches were cut. I’m hurt. I’m devastate. I can’t believe they would cut this many at Allatoonoa.”
More than a dozen Allatoona High School teachers -- including the head coaches of the school’s football, basketball, baseball and soccer teams -- were told earlier this week that their contracts would not be renewed.
"These education professionals deserved better because it’s not right to have to tell good employees they no longer have a job," said Jay Dillon, spokesman for the Cobb school system.
The Allatoona teachers are among 734 Cobb County school district employees -- including 579 teachers -- cut Wednesday when the Board of Education approved a $819.4 million budget. The school system was facing a $126.7 million deficit, much like financial problems hitting many Georgia schools.
" What we are experiencing is the effect of six years of austerity cuts by the state, and now those austerity cuts have been compounded by declining local property values," Dillon said. "An even bigger fear is that if economic conditions don’t improve soon, we could be in a similar, or worse, situation next year. We’re seeing some frustration and angst, and that’s understandable. We’ve lost a lot of really good educators."
Cindy Wilson’s son, Troy, is also losing half his teachers. “It’s cutting us deeply. It’s devastating,” Wilson said “It’s a new school. They brought a lot of these teachers on just to help build the program. They got us crawling. They got us walking a bit. And then they knocked our knees out from under us. It’s hurtful they are taking all our teachers.”
Mark Davis, a 16-year-old sophomore, said a Facebook page, Keeping Good Teachers in Cobb, was created just a day ago and it already has 500 followers.
Davis said several teacher-coaches went out of their way to take care of their students and athletes.
“This is wrong,” Davis said.
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