MULTIMEDIA

Charlotte Mecklenburg School officials cut hundreds of teachers earlier this year to make way for expected state budget cuts. But those cuts weren't as deep as the district expected and so CMS plans to hire 141 teachers before the school year starts.

This is the second year in a row CMS has had to cut teachers and then hire more before the school year starts. Each year the district is caught in something of a bind. The school board has to draw up a budget before the county and state decide how much to give CMS. By law the district has to send out pink slips several months before the lay offs go into effect, which turns out to be long before the state and county settle on a dollar amount.

This year the state gave CMS about $10 million more than the district expected. Superintendent Gorman says most of that money will be spent on bringing back teachers.

"The board approved for us to start with the last cut the board made to the budget and the last cut was increasing class sizes by two students," says Gorman. "So what this means is we'll only increase class sizes by one student next year."

Those teachers who were laid off must apply like everyone else.

CMS plans to post the jobs at its website within the next week. Most of the job openings will be in high schools and middle schools.

Seems more like it is some type of cheap scam to reset teachers' salaries at a baseline level. I.E. - keeping teachers on requires a small raise, but if you fire them, then you can rehire them again without the additional raise.