KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – Knox County Schools are cutting jobs due to a recent freeze in federal funding to local education programs.
According to Superintendent Jon Rysweyck, about $3.8 million in federal grants were frozen.
Due to the recent freeze, the school district eliminated 27.5 positions from the district office for the upcoming school year.
Rysweyck said the cuts included 13.5 regional content facilitators, 11 student support staff and three welcome center family liaisons.
“So everyone who was cut was placed somewhere, so that’s the good news, right?” Angela Taylor, former secondary ELA facilitator said. “We were given a job, but the bad news is that support structure changed.”
Taylor said the facilitators gave support to teachers in classrooms. It was through services like lesson planning or small group lessons for students.
The jobs eliminated were federally funded and dependent on the receipt of funding to continue into the 2025-26 school year, Carly Harrington with Knox County Schools said.
Knox County Schools is working with the staff impacted by the cuts to place them in open positions, Harrington said.
Superintendent Jon Rysweyck said coaches from the Gifted and Talented Program (GT) would be moved into those facilitator roles to maintain that support.
Taylor said she’s worried about the change could be overwhelming for teachers and students.
“I worry that the workload for a lot of other people is going to be increased,” she said. “I worry about the educators who are going to be asked to do jobs That they may not be completely prepared for.”
Students who benefitted from the GT program will still get the accelerated help they need, but Rysweyck said it could look different.
“So every kid will get English. Every kid will get math. But now, these kids who need that extra acceleration, they’re going to have to look at what that programming looks like,” he said. “It may not look and feel the same as it did when the 14 coaches were doing things like pull outs or that kind of thing. It may be a little bit different, but it will be definitely ways that we can continue to challenge. The kids who need that acceleration.”
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