On Feb. 7, a board of education meeting confirmed that four core teachers will be cut from Bedford and Coleytown combined.

“The middle school population in Westport is experiencing a decline,” said Dr. Rosen, Principal of BMS. “If BMS becomes a seven and eight school, instead of having ten teams (Five grade 7 teams and five grade 8 teams), we would run 4.5 teams per grade level for a total of nine teams at BMS. This represents a reduction of one teaching team, which explains the reduction of four core teachers.”

With these four teachers making up a core, that will mean one LA, SS, science, and math teacher will be eliminated from the CMS or BMS staff. It has nothing to do with what school they are from this year.
“Yes, there is certainly a distinct possibility that both BMS and CMS teachers will be cut, since the teachers all belong to the same bargaining unit (union); the fact that teachers are assigned to BMS or CMS has no bearing on their individual seniority within their union. In most cases, the most recent teacher to be hired are high up on the reduction in force list,” said Dr Rosen.

New teachers are farther away from tenure. Tenure is the indefinite appointment of a teacher who has been there for a while, usually five years, which gives the teacher immunity to being removed unless their subject is taken out of the school, or they are no longer fit to teach.

However, no subjects are expected to be removed from the district, thus only the declining number of students is causing the reduction of teachers. Despite the reduction of some teachers, there is a possibility they could come back later on.

When asked if cut teachers could make a return, Dr. Rosen said, “Yes, of course! We love and protect our talented teachers; if it comes to pass in all likelihood that a teacher is reduced due to no fault of their own, we would absolutely consider them for openings that may arise.”