At the district’s board of trustees meeting Aug. 6, the board voted 5-1 to rehire six gifted and talented, or GT, positions that had been eliminated by attrition since May 15. Board President Monica Ryan was the lone dissenting vote.
The motion—made by trustee Suzanne Kenoyer—stated that GT teachers will also be responsible for Academic Enrichment Teaching, or AET, lessons that go beyond the typical curriculum.
The move allows the district to have a full roster of academic enrichment staff, eliminating the need of district librarians on the elementary to take on AET responsibilities.
Judson’s board also voted unanimously to allow the district to fill seven vacant librarian positions with library aides.
The background
On May 15, the board approved moving AET responsibilities at elementary campuses onto librarians, allowing for 50% of librarian salaries to be paid from Title I funding, according to agenda documents.
The decision, along with eliminating 10 total GT positions by attrition, resulted in a cost savings of $750,000 to the district while maintaining AET programs. Since the decision, six of the GT positions were eliminated, equal to $450,000 in savings, the district's financial staff said.
Lacey Gosch, the district’s assistant superintendent of support services, said with school approaching, the district has been unable to find qualified candidates for seven librarian positions, including three that have persisted for more than a year.
Gosch said the district would have vacancies even if everyone who applied was hired, regardless of qualifications. She said library staff told her that no one wanted to be a librarian in Texas right now.
The options
The recommendations by Gosch were to fill four librarian vacancies at secondary campuses, either through volunteers or finding district librarians with secondary credentials.
Gosch said hiring aides to fill the remaining vacancies on the elementary level would better help librarians split library and AET responsibilities. The proposal would have seen aides and librarians in close proximity swap campuses every other week so that all campuses could have both services, according to agenda documents.
Before making her final motion, Kenoyer also said the district could keep the attrition for 10 GT teachers and eliminate AET for the 2025-26 school year. The district’s financial staff said the move would be about a $500,000 increase to the general fund budget.
Superintendent Milton Fields suggested the action eventually approved by the board, filling vacancies with aides and hiring back the sunsetted GT positions to ensure AET services at all elementary campuses, bringing librarians back to library-only responsibilities.
“For consistency of the library program, those campuses that have aides, they need a librarian to come in every now and then to make sure we’re doing everything the right way, but they’re only doing library responsibilities, not AET,” Fields said.
Cost to the district
Chief Financial Officer Tony Kingman said hiring back the six sunsetted GT positions will cost the district $450,000, while the hiring of seven aides instead of librarians in vacant positions would save Judson $280,000.
The two board decisions, Kingman said, combine for a total addition of $170,000 to the district shortfall.
Public input
Trustee Laura Stanford asked if adding AET programming responsibilities diminished applications for librarians. Gosch said staff has told her they were not happy with the addition and wanted to remain full-time librarians.
Loren Orzechowski, librarian for Candlewood Elementary, said a lack of timeliness with the AET shift was causing “a lot of undue stress.”
“We haven’t received training on it. We don’t have all the materials for it and we have kids in six days,” Orzechowski had said.
