Alabama’s interim state superintendent says about 200 teacher positions in Montgomery will have to be eliminated in order to stabilize finances.
Al.com reports interim superintendent Ed Richardson also says Montgomery will need to outsource about 400 support jobs. He says the Alabama Education Association could have prevented those job cuts for Montgomery Public Schools if the group had not gone to court to block his plan to sell Georgia Washington Middle School to the town of Pike Road.
Richardson led a state intervention into the Montgomery school system due to financial and academic problems.
Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange joined Richardson during Thursday's news conference. The city has no authority over education, but did expend time and money studying the possibility of a city school system before determining it was not feasible.
The Alabama Education Association represents teachers and other education employees in Alabama. They released a statement saying Richardson had a conflict of interest since he also worked as a consultant for the Pike Road school system.
Richardson says that claim is “totally false” and expects Georgia Washington and three other Montgomery-area schools to close.
Robert Porterfield, president of the Montgomery Public Schools Board, says Richardson is being prematurely negative.
"We were accredited before the state came and we have not been unaccredited and I think you're making a big to-do out of this before the board gets an opportunity to even see what they've come up with," Porterfield said.
