Four Teachers Resign, Accept Buyouts

In a special meeting held on April 1 by the Board of Education, the board moved to accept the resignations and approve the buyout offers of four teachers of the Kimball School District.

Among the teachers who have resigned are Emily Brooks, Junior-Senior High Art teacher, Kathleen O’Brien, Theresa Fiorelli, and Linda Mihm with O’Brien, Fiorelli, and Mihm accepting buyout offers from the district.

The resignations come from an offer that Superintendent Troy Unzicker extended to veteran teachers in order to avoid the termination of the newer teachers who might stay with the district a longer amount of time.

“We have a dollar figure we’re trying to get to. If we go for a RIF, the lower end teachers with the less experience are the ones that are going to get cut, but by going the other way, I’ve offered buyouts to the top paid teachers who were probably going to retire next year anyway,” Unzicker said.

According to Unzicker, this decision seemed to be the best option in order to help the Kimball School District stay within budget.

“For both sides it makes more sense to get the ones who are going to leave in a year anyway than have to cut somebody who might want to spend 20 or 30 more years working for us. By giving the buyouts to those top end teachers, we actually save more money than I would be riffing those bottom end teachers,” Unzicker said.

However, though the resignations may prove to help the financial problems the school district has faced recently, Unzicker is far from enthusiastic about the situation.

“It’s not that we want those top end teachers to go, because they’re great teachers. It’s just one of those tough deals. You don’t want anybody to go, but for financial reasons, somebody has to go,” Unzicker said.

Unzicker also emphasized that none of the teachers were forced into resignation by the district.

“We gave them the offer. It’s completely their option. They don’t have to leave. We’re not forcing them out. We’re not making them leave. It’s simply an offer for them to leave early,” Unzicker said.

A replacement art teacher for Brooks has already been hired by the school district.

“We did reach an agreement with a new art teacher, Kimberly Beyer, a Kimball graduate. She has probably 30 years of experience, and she’s worked as an art teacher for 15 of those years. I think she’ll be a tremendous asset to Kimball,” Unzicker said.

The School board also accepted the resignation and approved the certificated buyout offer of Ed Montgomery at their April 8 meeting, with Montgomery’s resignation to be effective June 30.

Though it is never easy on a school district to have teachers resign, the recent resignations may just save the jobs of the teachers who remain under employment of the district.

“We’re not quite to the threshold yet where we can say RIF is completely off of the table, but it’s very minimal if we do have to go to a RIF now. On buyouts, if I can get to five, that’s going to be enough to take a RIF off the table, and we accepted our fourth one last night,” Unzicker said.