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Cahokia School Board meeting to decide on teacher layoffs

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The Cahokia School Board will meet tonight to decide whether to lay off up to 70 teachers because of a budget deficit.

School officials have said that lower tax revenues and delayed state payments have left Cahokia's budget about $1 million in the red. Brent Murphy, president of the Cahokia Federation of Teachers, says he hopes that reducing instructors and other staff is not the only solution.

"As a classroom teacher myself, the one on one contact will be decreased because your classroom sizes are going to have to go up, which means other programs are going to be cut which means that kids that need additional support are going to suffer and that's the really sad thing about all of this," Murphy said.

Murphy says the teachers that could be laid off are those with the least seniority. They could be called back to work if more funding is found.

The agenda for tonight's meeting can be found here.