Rehiring 500 - a statement from Cobb County School District

There’s actually a simple explanation for why we are able to hire as many teachers. Since we began the layoffs, we’ve had an unexpectedly high level of attrition for normal reasons. This attrition has created vacancies that we are now able to fill. In many cases we’ll be able to fill those vacancies with teachers who had been laid off. We had hoped there would be some attrition, but we did not know there would be this much. Remember that state law requires school districts to extend contracts to teachers by May 15, so we actually began the layoffs back in April. Since then, we’ve had more than 300 regular teachers leave for normal reasons (relocation, retirement, etc.). Another 130 special education teacher vacancies have opened, as well as 60 part-time positions. The timing of the layoffs is tied to the budget approval and the requirement that teacher contracts be extended by May 15. In the meantime, additional vacancies are created when teachers leave for other reasons. We cannot know in advance who will leave, and how many. It is unfortunate that any teachers had to be laid off, but it is truly great news that we are now able to hire many of them back.