Parents, friends and family filled the Civic Center in downtown Syracuse on Thursday night to cheer and celebrate Corcoran High School's graduating class.
Syracuse's Board of Education sat on the stage and congratulated the graduates, just hours after they voted to eliminate 204 positions from the school district.
Corcoran parent Ed Cosentino said it was tough to hear that some of the teachers that helped his son graduate could lose their jobs.
"They work awful hard for their jobs and they have an awful lot of responsibility," said Cosentino. "I have another daughter in the district so I hope it doesn't affect her."
Superintendent Dan Lowengard says layoffs could be avoided if the district's unions would accept a one year pay freeze. The administration union turned that proposal down earlier this week, saying they wanted the school district to provide more state retirement incentives. The School District's Chief Financial Officer said those incentives would cost the district too much. After the administration union turned it down, the teacher's union refused to even vote on it.
On Thursday, Lowengard said 50 to 100 more positions may be eliminated next month unless more state lawmakers come up with more money.
"We had an increase in enrollment of 400 people and that normally is five million dollars so if they don't come forward with five million dollars that adds to the toll of the people we have to reduce," said Lowengard.
Thursday was bittersweet for Zarrieff Brooks and her husband. The couple celebrated their son's graduation from Corcoran with friends and friends but with serious concerns. Brooks and her husband are both teachers and they are worried about how deep the cuts will be.
"The more you cut, the less they're getting from us. We need more teachers and if you keep cutting more teachers then we're suffering and the kids are suffering," said Brooks.
The teacher's union and the Superintendent said they hoped to continue talking about ways to avoid layoffs but the Lowengard said without a pay freeze, the district is somewhat boxed in.
