News 12 First at Five; June 30, 2009

AIKEN CTY, S.C. --- About 100 positions have already been eliminated and multimillion dollar cuts will have to be made tonight, in the final budget meeting for Aiken County's 2009-2010 School Budget. We've got your preview right here.

Months of speculation inside the classrooms and inside the board chambers will end in just a few hours, with all of it meaning some big changes for you, your school and North Augusta High School Principal Kyle Smith.

"The spring semester of 2009 was the most stressful semester as a principal I've ever had," says Principal Smith. He lost 8 teachers alone this year. "We lost good people, but we have to move on."

Even more jobs were or will be cut county-wide too, along with other programs that are on the chopping block tonight. That includes the International Baccalaureate Program. We are learning at North Augusta High, that problem will be up and running for seniors only, but go away in 2010.

"There are going to be decisions that we will have to make that are breaking our hearts," says School Board Chairwoman Dr. Christine Harkins.

Thanks to $6.9 million in stimulus money, things may change tonight. That includes: possibly not forcing teachers and administrators to take furloughs, not increasing the student/teacher ratio as much as anticipated, putting money toward a reading intervention program and more.

We do know it is almost certain that some of that stimulus money will go to the County's Reserve Fund, which took a pretty big beating with all the cuts that happened in the middle of this past school year.

"I don't envy being any school board member. They have a tough job," says Smith. So too, does Smith. But, he's reorganized for next year and will cap all classes at 25 students.

"It's one of those things where you hear cut, cut, cut, cut. You don't even hear that, well, there's actually going to be more courses added next year. There's going to be more AP courses next year," adds Smith.

But, adding classes means adding work for teachers and cutting programs certainly will be no easy task for anyone.

The budget will be finalized tonight at 7 P.M. at the School District Office on Brookhaven Drive in Aiken. That's off Whiskey Road.