Most are teachers, and some will likely be recalled
The over 200 staffers laid off included a handful of social workers.
/ File
FLINT -- The Flint School Board voted 7-1 Tuesday to cut over 200 staff positions, the vast majority of them teachers. The only no vote was board member Dave Davenport and School Board President Antoinette Lockett was absent from the meeting.
School board members tell NBC25 laying off teachers in the spring is an annual event, and many teachers are called back once the student count for the fall is known.
But math teacher Kevin Gavulic says it's done backwards. In the fall, he says, some students will begin the year without a teacher and have one added. He says that makes no sense.
"I think it would be more just to keep the teacher in the way of 'I might not need you' ... if your child started off the year with a substitute teacher would you have any confidence in what was going on?"
Board members cited teacher tenure reform as a reason for no longer doing the layoffs based on seniority but rather based on teacher evaluations. Gavulic questioned the validity of that method, saying he has never had a bad evaluation.
The Flint teacher's union is currently suing the school board over the use of the evaluations they used to determine the cuts.
