In a meeting that became very contentious at times, the Jefferson County Board of Education approved cutbacks which include reductions in force, resulting in the net loss of 162 jobs.

The “Superintendent’s Recommendation for Financial Improvement,” presented by Supt. Dr. Craig Pouncey in the board’s regular monthly meeting today, will result in the loss of 70 locally-funded teaching units. In addition, all 24 general education instructional aide positions will be eliminated, and 16 assistant principals will lose their positions.

The plan also calls for a reduction of 91 various local school office staff positions, with such positions now being allocated based on student populations. Local school accounting will now be centralized, and 65 new replacement positions will be created with 10-month contracts.

Other cutbacks include the consolidation of the two Jefferson County Counseling and Learning Centers — commonly referred to as “alternative school” — into one at Hueytown. The JCCLC West location, just off Black Creek Road in the Springdale neighborhood just east of Fultondale, will be shuttered.

More savings will be realized through cutting the contracts of some assistant principals from 12 months to 10, with work schedules during the summer months staggered to cover affected dates.

The system’s central office will also feel the pinch, as 18 positions will be lost there.

Pouncey’s plan also calls for “maximizing efficiency of utilities,” implementing an already-conducted analysis that would save more than $1.1 million, and retention of $1 million in state pass-through funds that would normally go to child nutrition, but which have not been required in recent times because of efforts to cut costs. JefCoEd spokeswoman Nez Calhoun said that the system has been operating at a four-month reserve in these programs, with state law requiring just two months. “They’ve been doing a great job controlling costs,” Calhoun said.

Chief School Finance Officer Sheila Jones told the board that the savings per year would amount to approximately $12.6 million. That would more than cover the $10 million per year that the system has been spending over and above its revenue.

The board voted 3-2 to implement Pouncey’s plan, with Vice President Jennifer Parsons joining members Oscar Mann and Martha Bouyer voting in favor. The votes against came from Jacqueline Smith and Board President Dean Taylor, who responded to the roll call with a loud, emphatic “no.”

The discussion over the plan, which lasted more than an hour, occasionally became contentious between Taylor and Parsons, who preceded Taylor as board president, and also between Taylor and Pouncey. Parsons tried to cut off further discussion of the plan at one point by calling for a vote, but was rebuffed by Taylor after an opinion from attorney Carl Johnson, who stated that the board president has final authority to determine when discussion ends and the vote is taken.

Pouncey said after the meeting that he was disappointed in the decorum of the meeting. “I’m totally embarrassed,” Pouncey said. “This was very uncharacteristic of what Jefferson County [has been like] in the past. I hope that all of our school board members go back and read the assurances that they signed as part of the School Board Governance Act. Obviously they were in violation of that affirmation statement, because there was a lot of politics at play here.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Taylor responded to Pouncey’s remarks. “We were all seeking information, and we have to vote our conscience up here.”

Board members were hit with a barrage of phone calls and emails over the 24 hours prior to Thursday’s meeting, thanks to a list of phone numbers and email addresses posted on social online media by members of the two unions that represent JefCoEd employees.

“I got 300 emails last night and responded to 150, before my husband told me it was time to take it to the barn,” Parsons said.

Taylor said after the meeting that he also received numerous calls, with many constituents concerned about the way the system was going about the changes.

“One [of the issues] that I kept hearing over and over again was transparency,” Taylor said. “I heard from the Gardendale people that one of the main reasons they wanted to start their system was transparency.”

Smith was also upset with Pouncey for not being notified of Tuesday afternoon’s emergency board meeting, which was officially called with about two hours notice to consider the resignation of a teacher at Center Point High School. Smith was absent; Taylor originally came, but left before the official meeting took place.

Pouncey said that he met with board members in pairs at that time with the main points of his plan.

“I met two by two with board members and gave them their homework,” Pouncey said.

Near the end of the debate, Taylor said he wanted more information, because he couldn’t vote in favor of the plan at that time “with a clear conscience.”

“I have given you enough information. I can’t control your conscience,” Pouncey replied.

The vote met with overwhelming disapproval by representatives of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), who claim about 50 percent of the JefCoEd workforce, as well as the Alabama Education Association (AEA).

Marrianne Hayward, president of the Jefferson County branch of the AFT, was highly critical of the cuts, and said that Pouncey had previously told her group that there would be no reduction in force. She also took issue with Pouncey’s vocal criticism of her members contacting board members.

“They have a constituency that they were elected to represent, and they are angry that those voters called them?” Hayward said.

Sue Duke, who works at Fultondale Elementary as a health room aide and is president of the AEA’s service personnel division, fought back tears as she addressed the board at the end of the meeting, and in remarks afterward.

“It breaks my heart,” she said. “I’m a product of the Jefferson County Schools and a 29-year employee, and I’ve never seen such an atrocity…. We didn’t know the extent of some of these [cuts] until the committee meetings.”