NORWICH – It’s no secret that school districts statewide continue to struggle financially and are attempting anything and everything to cut costs. Yet the transfer of staff by the Norwich City School District administration has educators – both former and present – concerned for students next year.

During the public comments portion of Monday night’s school board meeting, Eric Cunningham, an NHS math teacher and president of the Norwich Educators Organization, said the month of June carries a lot of significance for teachers. With the number of staff transfers over the past two or three years – middle school teachers moving to an elementary school, high school teachers moving to the middle school and so forth – it’s difficult for those displaced teachers to prepare for the upcoming school year, according to Cunningham.

“‘Summers off’ aren’t really the vacation that many people think they are, especially with teachers not knowing what or where they’ll be teaching,” he added. “It’s a fact that, even with our time off, as teachers, we spend a sizable amount of time either developing new curriculums or revising old ones.”

This year, the district plans to displace a pair of teachers that Cunningham said he did not wish to name.

The NEO president said he believes many of these transfers are done without any sort of reasoning and – while he understands that some movement is inevitable – teachers require ample time to prepare for those types of changes.

Retired long-time Norwich educator Don Chirlin said it’s important for instructors to know what exactly they’re going to be teaching the next year. He added that being certified to teach grades 7 through 12 doesn’t necessarily mean a teacher should be placed arbitrarily, a practice he said he believed “doesn’t work very well.”