Urbana school district lays off more than 100

URBANA — The Urbana school district laid off 139 teachers and support staff Tuesday night -- nearly three times more than the number they normally lay off in the spring.

But this is not a normal year.

“All bets are off in terms of what happened in the past,” said Superintendent Preston Williams. “This is whole new territory.”

The Urbana school board made $2 million in cuts to next year’s budget on Sunday that included eliminating a number of positions. In addition, the district doesn’t know if it will receive the grant money next year that pays the salaries of some of its teachers.

The employees laid off Tuesday night were 33 teachers, two of whom were tenured; 38 employees, both certified and non-certified, from the Urbana Adult Education program; and 48 support staff, including teaching assistants, hallway monitors, language interpreters, and some districtwide positions.

 

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