The city of Atlanta, Georgia is a thriving metropolis, one that is considered a center of commerce and culture in its state. Some people even call it the New York City of the south. Well that comparison may be more apt then ever in the last couple of days. The city schools are getting ready to cut back on a significant number of workers in order to make ends meet.

In a situation that mirrors in many ways the situation that took place in the New York City schools in this current school year the city is having to cut back on a large, but not exact number. The specifics of who has to be cut is a bit in the air, even after an official layoff announcement was made by the Superintendent of the Atlanta school system, Erroll Davis in a meeting that took place on Monday.

The school district will be cutting back on somewhere between 350 and 450 workers when the school year comes to an end. The school is giving early notification because job cuts of this level are more than enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the federal guidelines, and that means that by law the employer must give workers and the community at large time to prepare for the hit to the local economy that this many layoffs means. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea here is a look at how the federal government defines a mass layoff, “actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

All of these cuts are for the time being not finalized with too many specifics, but the school has made it clear that the majority of the job cuts will actually come from the teachers of the school district, though some of the support staff will also be impacted by the job cuts. For the time being there is not look at which schools will be most impacted by the cuts, though some schools in the are set to close for the coming school year as well. These plans are part of a redistricting effort that the school is working on for the next school year to balance low enrollment schools are those facilitates that are painfully overcrowded.

We do know that according to the official plans at least 230 teachers will be cut, 11 coaches, nine media specialists and 100 custodians will get the axe. There may be more cuts in the near future if the school is not able to hit its savings target with only these cuts. The schools are looking to save about $47 million each school year.