Rockford School Board dismisses 98 teachers

ROCKFORD — The Rockford School Board has agreed to dismiss 98 probationary teachers for the next school year.

The board approved the cuts Tuesday. But the Rockford Register Star (http://bit.ly/xxbn1X ) reports that the district doesn’t plan any more large reductions, unlike in recent years when more than 500 staff members were fired at the end of the school year.

Interim Superintendent Robert Willis says the board took a lot of heat for those cuts, but he says the reductions served to “right-size” the district’s staff.

Willis says the teachers being cut won’t be surprised by the termination notices. He says many of those positions were either grant-funded or short-term contracts. And he says some of the teachers were employees who had returned to teaching for the school year after previously retiring.