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NSBNEWS.net photo by Sera King. Because of Volusia County School District budget cuts, several elementary schools were closed for this school year, including Samsula Elementary, which reopened as a charter school renamed Samsula Academy.
DELAND -- Nowhere has the downturn in the economy had a stronger effect locally in 2008, than the Volusia County Schools with $45 million-plus in state budget cuts that forced the district to lay off more than 200 teachers, close several schools and legal sparring between the schools superintendent and the president of the teacher's union.
The layoffs were particularly devastating, 316 in all, including 220 teachers, though several were later brought back. Some 600 children lost the opportunity or busing and a host of other cost-cutting measures such as the elimination of middle school basketball and freshmen sports were made for the school-year.
One of the reasons cited for cuts is declining student enrollment, down more than 2 percent this year alone and expected to continue dwindling over the next five years, according to district projections.
Things got so bad, Superintendent Margaret Smith gave herself a 2 percent pay cut Sept. 30, to bring her base salary down to $171,665, a drop of $3,506 (see entry No. 60 in the countdown). Andrew Spar, president of the Volusia Teachers Organization, led a teacher rally in October at the Mary McLeod Bethune Performing Arts Center in Daytona Beach.
Spar and Smith sparred in August when he claimed the administration was district leaders were misleading the public about budget cuts, which in turn, led her to file a lawsuit against him, which she later dropped. And for the students and their parents, 2008, meant a lot of change as in where the kids were actually reporting for classes with several elementary schools closing. Samsula Elementary School was among them, but was reopened as a charter school under Samsula Academy.