I'M NOT SAYING IT MAY BE A PURGE, BUT...

The Lakeland Ledger is reporting this morning that 22 teachers and paraprofessionals in the Lake Wales Charter School System, including eleven of the 80 teachers at Lake Wales High School, have been advised that their contracts will not be renewed next year and will be placed on the Polk County School Board's list of displaced teachers.

Lake Wales met all the requirments and formed it's own charter school group consisting of four elementary, one middle, and one high school. This was the first year that it has operated seperately from the Polk County School District. All teachers and paraprofessionals were guaranteed their jobs for this first school year, and had officially taken one year leaves of absence from the Polk County district so that if this scenario had come about they could be placed on the displaced teachers list and could be assigned to other schools throughout the county for the next school year.

Decisions were reportedly made by principals at the individual schools, and Charter School Superintendent Clint Wright told the Ledger that decisions were made not to cut costs --- a number of those affected were veteran teachers --- but based on performance.

Certainly, any school will want to get rid of teachers and staff members who aren't getting the job done, but the large number after only one year is rather interesting. That's all I'm saying right now...