At a recent District 219 school board meeting, it was announced that next year, “associate principals” would take over the disciplinary role of deans, while also supervising individual departments. Superintendent Tom Moore admitted at the meeting that this choice was, in part, a cost-cutting move, based on expected budget cuts to education planned by the new Trump administration.
Now the district has announced plans to cut costs even further by combining even more faculty positions around the school. For example, janitorial staff will take a secondary role as school library assistants. In addition, members of the Niles North cafeteria crew will drive school buses to and from Niles North in the mornings and afternoons.
“We’re even thinking of doing away with hiring substitute teachers,” one member of the school board told North Star News. “We can just have security guards serve as subs, and then we won’t need to hand out an extra paycheck.”
The school board’s plans have caused a degree of contention around Niles North, with some students and staff feeling that the intended fusion of positions is ill-advised.
“It’s just going to create too much work for everybody,” one security guard said. “And we’ll be paid the same, but we’ll have to do more work than before, so it’s not going to be worth it.”
“It’s just crazy,” an anonymous junior said. “No one has the time in the day for all this stuff.”
Staff members are already scrambling to prepare for their upcoming duties. Janitors are learning the Dewey Decimal System from librarians while cafeteria workers are practicing driving buses in the school parking lot on weekends. Owing to the relatively little time before the district starts compacting positions, the main focus is for these learners to understand the basics of their new roles, without too much concern for the details.
“If the cafeteria workers can get to the right neighborhood, and janitors can shelve books in more or less the right section, we’ll be fine,” Superintendent Moore said.
Members of the school board wanted the District 219 community to know that they understand the stress they are creating and empathize with the faculty members whose jobs will be radically changed.
“Look, we’re sorry, we know what it’s going to mean for the schools,” one school board member said. “But these budget cuts are gonna hit us hard, and we have to be ready. This is our way to try and mitigate the harm.”
The long-term effects of the district’s faculty fusions have yet to be seen. It is not yet clear to what extent this measure will save money for the school. Fortunately, the school board has other plans up its sleeve to safeguard District 219’s finances.
“If this doesn’t work out,” a different school board member said, “we can combine departments too. History teachers can teach cooking classes, math teachers can teach English. You know, whatever we have to do to be cost-effective.”
