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Stimulus plan for 55 school jobs

The Clarke County School District could create 55 positions next year under a plan to spend $6.4 million in federal stimulus funds earmarked to help low-income children and students with disabilities.

School district administrators developed the spending plan, which would add positions across all grade levels to help struggling students and assist some of their teachers. If approved by both the local and state boards of education, the school district could begin to hire new employees as early as July 1. A chunk of the money - $1 million - would be used to fund 30 academic interventionists, who work with small groups of elementary school students.

The district also would hire eight additional special education teachers, along with reading specialists and math coaches to work with teachers and students in middle and high school.

Stimulus money couldn't save the jobs of 59 first-grade parapros or help avoid other spending cuts school administrators proposed to balance the 2010 budget, administrators said.

To use the stimulus money, the school district has to prove the positions could not be funded any other way, so when the stimulus money runs out, the jobs likely will disappear, too, said Monica Knight, director of student achievement and educational equity for Clarke schools.

While she hopes a better economy will mean more funding for schools, neither Knight nor school district administrators and school board members said whether they would support the use of local taxes to keep the positions.

"Right now, we have to spend this money. By the whole essence of the word 'stimulus' - you use it now and, hopefully, you get a chance to have an impact on student achievement. We're glad that we get to put forth some jobs, but the biggest one for us is being able to increase student achievement," she said.

While stimulus money can't be used to offset proposed budget cuts, the school district may be able to save, and even expand, a successful behavioral rehabilitation program.

The program, called Project Grow, is for elementary school students who repeatedly misbehave or commit serious offenses like bringing a knife to school. In a 15-day out-of-school program, they are monitored closely by counselors and psychologists.

With the federal stimulus funding, the school district may offer the program to middle school students instead of assigning them to attend classes at SOAR Academy, the school district's punitive alternative school.

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