Wednesday, Sep. 23, 2009

Wake defends how it's spending stimulus cash

Wake County school leaders went on the offensive Tuesday over complaints that they didn't use federal stimulus dollars more aggressively to save jobs.

School board members and administrators said they're using federal stimulus dollars the way they were intended, including creating jobs instead of just saving them.

The dispute pits Wake against Gov. Beverly Perdue and other state education leaders who say that a priority should be saving teacher jobs and keeping class sizes down.

Wake, like many school districts, coped with the state funding cuts by raising class sizes in grades four through 12 and slashing teacher and teacher assistant positions.

Perdue has urged school districts to use stimulus dollars, which are only guaranteed for two years, to save jobs now.

Wake school officials said that they will use the $47.3 million in stimulus money the system will receive over the next two years to save or create 558jobs.

Wake Superintendent Del Burns said using the money for things such as hiring math and literacy coaches to train teachers and expanding pre-kindergarten classes will promote benefits even if the positions are eliminated two years from now.

Jennifer Lanane, president of the Wake chapter of the N.C. Association of Educators, said she wished more new hiring had been used to reduce class sizes instead of for new coaches. But she said she's glad some jobs were saved.