Three staff members from the Charleston School District will be eliminated from the payroll for the 2010-2011 school year after the school board voted in favor of the cuts at Wednesday’s meeting.

During the meeting, Charleston’s School Board reviewed and voted on the next phase of recommendations for the school’s budget cuts. The budget cuts and situations are ongoing; therefore, the budget cuts are being presented in a set of phases.

The recommendations included the reduction of certified employees by honorable dismissal, resignation and personal transfer, said Jim Littleford, the Charleston School District superintendent.

The projected savings for the reductions are about $700,000.

The eliminated teachers include Sheri Cash, a social studies teacher from the high school, Lindsey Kinkelaar, a business teacher from the high school and Dana Gieseke, a part time preschool teacher.

The individuals who have been cut will have recall rights if the state budget works itself out; however, the district’s financial consultant, David Kuetemeyer, said the governor’s budget suggestions look grim for the state’s school districts.

For the fiscal year 2011, the governor has suggested a cut of $450 per student at the foundation level across the state, Kuetemeyer said. If accepted, this budget may cost the Charleston School District about $1.6 million.

“Reducing the foundation level funding is completely devastating,” said Ron Miller, president of the school board. “It’s getting tough and we’ve worked hard for the schools and the kids. I’m just totally frustrated.”

In response to Miller’s comment, school board member Kevin Oakley said no matter the situation, the decision had to be made.

“No matter how you look at it, we have $1.6 million to cut out of the budget,” Oakley said. “We’ve been told to live within our means and find a way to do the least amount of damage possible, and there is nothing we can do about that.”

The school board passed all of Litttleford’s recommendations.

They included a plan to narrow the amount of transfers into Charleston from Ashmore to only the students dictated by medical or individualized education program needs.

Appropriate language will need to be adopted within board policies.

“Charleston has been very accepting towards students from other schools, but we simply can’t afford (to be) any longer,” Littleford said.

Along with the three teachers who will be eliminated from the district, five other positions will be reduced. The current staff occupying those will be transferred to other positions within the district.

The terminated positions will include a physical education position, a computer technology position and an art teacher position at the Charleston Middle School, and two literacy coaches from Carl Sandburg Grade School and Mark Twain Grade School.

With the school board’s vote, the district will also refrain from hiring six of the seven positions of resigning staff members.

The only position that will replaced after the resignations will be a reading teacher from the Charleston Middle School.

The district will do the same with two of the seven retirement positions.

The eliminated positions will include two of the four first, second or third grade teaching positions at Carl Sandburg Grade School. Staff members currently in the district will replace the two remaining positions.

Finally, the compensation of the district’s energy manager, Bill Lumpkin, will be reduced by $7,000, which will now total about $13,000 per year.

The board finally established a special school meeting for March 24 at 6:30 p.m. to be held in the high school auditorium.

Kayleigh Zyskowski can be reached at 581-7942 or

[email protected]