The Jackson County School System received a month’s reprieve when it comes to issuing teacher contracts for the 2009-2010 school year, thanks to legislation approved last week.

House Bill 455, signed into law by Gov. Sonny Perdue on April 6, allows school systems statewide to postpone issuing contracts until May 15, exactly one month after the original April 15 deadline.

Shannon Adams, superintendent for Jackson County Schools, said the school system would be taking advantage of this new deadline. So will many schools in Georgia, he said, because it gives more time to work out system budgets and find out how much money will come from the state for salaries and benefits.

"That will allow dollar amounts on contracts and will also allow for us to do a better job of calculating all the supplemental pay in the school system," he said.

The move comes just two weeks after Jackson County Schools announced a reduction in force plan, which removes graduation coaches at all middle schools, the assistant superintendent for human resources, 12 certified positions and another 26 classified positions systemwide.

In addition to the 38 job cuts in the reduction in force plan, the district will also lose another 42 positions that will not continue to be funded by the state. Others vacant through resignations and retirements will remain unfilled in the 2009-2010 school year.

The system anticipates saving close to $4 million total from the reduction in force plan, a furlough plan and the elimination of the regional evening school program at the Gordon Street Center in Jefferson.

At its next meeting, the board will consider a measure to change the nonresident student policy to help those system employees who’ve been laid off still keep their children in their current schools.

The policy currently states that children of school system employees can attend a school outside of their attendance zone if the employee agrees to provide transportation.

The board will consider changing the policy to allow employees "living outside the district or attendance zone, whose positions are eliminated due to a reduction in force, may keep their children in their current school until completion of that school, but must provide transportation."