Published Sunday, January 11, 2009
New school will bring jobs
The Times-Herald
With Coweta County's unemployment numbers rising 81 percent over last year's figures, Cowetans and others who are out of work are desperate for jobs.
There'll be some job opportunities in a few months as the Coweta County School System starts advertising to fill positions for a new elementary school opening in north Coweta. As the area's largest public employer, the Coweta County School System will be posting those vacancies on its Web site as soon as next month, according to Dean Jackson, Coweta School System spokesman.
The Coweta School System also posts vacancies on www.teachgeorgia.gov, a job and recruitment resource for educators maintained by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission.
The first position to be filled, which will be posted sometime this month, will be for the principal's job at the new Brooks Elementary School. The system's 19th elementary school is scheduled to open by the fall of 2009.
"They'll want the principal in place to go through the contracts for the new school," Jackson said.
Marc Guy, human resources director, said current teachers will then be allowed the opportunity to interview with the new principal and be selected for transfer. "The new principal will also select from current applications on file for positions," he said.
While the school system has typically promoted or hired for the top principal jobs within the system, "we're not going to limit ourselves to just within the school system," Jackson said. He added the school system invests a lot of time developing its own talent and many faculty members take advantage of additional leadership training for such opportunities.
The regular hiring season for the school system typically begins in February or March with contracts issued at the end of March. Jackson explained the school system starts its annual process of reviewing and renewing contracts in late winter and early spring, and that's about when all positions for the new school will also be posted online.
"Brooks will have a principal and at least one assistant principal at this point," Guy said. "Some elementary schools with high enrollments do have two assistants. The final number of faculty is determined once student enrollment numbers are complete."
The new school, which will have about 650 students, will need a staff of about the same size of Welch Elementary, Jackson said. Welch, which has about 100 faculty and staff members, was the most recently opened elementary school.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that there will be 100 new administrative and teacher positions at Brooks since the staffs at the other schools impacted by a current redistricting effort will likely shrink, according to Guy.
"At this point, I do not anticipate a large amount of growth this year compared to previous years," he said.
Students are assigned to schools according to which school district they live in, and Brooks Elementary's proposed district lines are currently being considered by a redistricting committee. The new attendance lines will affect students currently attending Arnco-Sargent, Canongate, Northside and Arbor Springs elementaries. Some students from these four overcrowded schools will be reassigned to attend the new school for the 2009-2010 school year.
Positions are funded by the state based on enrollment. With state revenue shortfalls and more education cuts anticipated this year, no school system -- including Coweta's -- is anticipating additional help from the state.
"With recent budget cuts at the state level, funding formulas may change this year," Guy said. "At this point, some things still remain to be determined."