JACKSON — Northampton County School officials have approved a reduction in force.

On Monday, the Northampton County Board of Education approved the elimination of 43 classified and certified positions, including teachers, teacher assistants and assistant principal positions.

During the meeting, Schools Superintendent Dr. Eric Bracy recommended the board authorize, as required by the school system’s policy, a reduction in force—the first step in the process.

“This is not people,” said Bracy of the recommendation.

By procedure the board approves a reduction in force and then approves the amount of positions to eliminate. The final step is to decide which employees are to be included in the RIF.

Board member Lafayette Majette moved to authorize Bracy to conduct a reduction in force and it was seconded by Donald Johnson. The motion passed with out objection.

Rhonda Taylor then made a motion to accept Bracy’s memo to employees dated June 6 with the reduction in force categories specific in the letter and Johnson offered a second.

Before the measure passed, Vice Chair Marjorie Edwards questioned with retirements and those planning to leave the school system if those would have any affect on the number of positions eliminated.

Bracy said if the employee was leaving he was not going to “RIF” an empty position.

Board Attorney Rod Malone said Edwards brought up a valid point.

“There’s a difference in the elimination of positions and people,” said Malone. “There are two different scenarios you might find: the board might actually eliminate 19.5 positions, when he brings you the people he might only bring 12 people because seven of the 19 have retired or moved on; or it may be the reverse, where you might really have 25 positions, but only 19.5 positions are slated to have people next year.”

After the board returned from a closed session for personnel and attorney-client privilege, the board approved the elimination of the positions.

According to memos provided by the Board of Education to the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald, the reduction in force affects 20.5 certified employee positions, including the elimination of eight regular education teaching positions, 6.5 Exceptional Children (EC) teaching positions, four Pre-K teaching positions, two assistant principals and seven months of administrative employment.

School by school, the certified employee reduction in force includes:

Central Elementary with two EC teaching positions.

Gaston Elementary School with the elimination of one month of assistant principal employment and one teaching position.

Squire Elementary School with one EC teaching position.

Willis Hare Elementary School with one EC teaching position and elimination of one month of assistant principal employment.

Conway Middle School with four teaching positions and the elimination of one month assistant principal employment.

Northampton Alternative School with one EC teaching position.

Northampton County High School-East with two teaching positions, one assistant principal position, elimination of two months of assistant principal employment.

Northampton County High School-West STEM with one teaching position, 1.5 EC teaching positions, one assistant principal position and the elimination of two months assistant principal employment.

The classified employee reduction in force of 22.5 positions, including 13 regular teaching assistants, 5.5 EC teacher assistants and 4 Pre-K teacher assistants positions.

School by school, the classified employee reduction in force includes:

Central Elementary with four teacher assistant positions and .5 EC teacher assistant positions.

Conway Middle School with 1.5 EC teacher assistant positions.

Gaston Elementary School with two teacher assistant positions and two EC teacher assistant positions.

Northampton Alternative School with .5 EC teacher assistant position.

Squire Elementary School with four teacher assistant positions and one EC teacher position.

Willis Hare Elementary School with three teacher assistant positions.

At their last meeting at the beginning of the month, Assistant Superintendent Phil Matthews, while presenting reduction in force polices to the Board, noted the availability of funds for the 2011-2012 school year driven by the state budget officials created a reduction in force situation in the school district.