Up to 2,000 workers may soon lose their jobs under Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to restructure the school system, sources said yesterday.
Under Bloomberg’s plan, dubbed “Children First,” the staffs of about 40 district offices will be gutted almost completely.
While the districts will continue to exist, schools would be grouped into networks of about 15 per neighborhood, the sources said.
A superintendent will be put in charge of groups of these networks. Top performing schools will be put into elite networks, and will be given more say in how they’re run.
“The mayor wants to give more autonomy to high-performing schools,” a source familiar with the plan said.
The idea behind the plan, which may be announced in Bloomberg’s State of the City Address next week, is to eliminate bureaucracy and cut payroll – and effectively end community control of schools.
The plan calls for the termination of about half of the 4,000 workers who work at school-district headquarters, sources said. Most of the remaining employees would take jobs elsewhere in the school system.
Workers at regional centers, to be proposed by the mayor and managers working in schools, will handle administrative tasks, freeing principals to oversee education.