Cuts to Wilmington City Schools’ (WCS) staff for next school year were approved Monday by the school board, which is faced with an evaporating revenue stream and a community unable to increase its financial commitment.

Eliminated for the 2009-10 school year will be 7.5 certificated jobs, including a high school math teacher position, a high school English teacher, a high school social studies teacher, a high school/East End Elementary special education teacher, a reading intervention elementary teacher, a guidance counselor in the elementary and middle school grades, a high school/middle school in-school-restriction teacher and a half-time speech therapy teacher.

“Are these cuts going to hurt us? Yes, they’re going to hurt us a great deal. But we didn’t have a choice. We had to find close to a million dollars (to cut),” said WCS Superintendent Ron Sexton following the board of education meeting.

Also to be cut next school year will be the jobs of a high school media aide and an attendance secretary, as well as the administrative positions of an assistant treasurer and a director of communications. Three administrative positions already had been cut coming into the current school year — namely, a second high school assistant principal, a literacy specialist and a curricular technologist.

According to Sexton, the teachers in the district “overwhelmingly” agreed to give up some things out of their contract in order to save five or six positions. Those concessions agreed to by teachers will save almost $300,000, he said.

“We’re all going to have to work together for the next couple years until we get back on our feet,” Sexton said.

The salaries for administrators will be frozen for the 2009-10 school year, a measure that will save the district about $75,000. The annual annuity as outlined in administrators’ contracts will be eliminated for next school year, saving about $15,000.

An attendance bonus as outlined in the administrators’ contracts will be eliminated for next school year, saving the district about $5,000. Each administrator’s contracted days will be reduced by one day for 2009-10, saving $6,000.

Teachers likewise have agreed to have their salaries frozen plus take a one-day cut in their contract for 2009-10.

Sexton said about $550,000 was cut coming into the current school year from the prior year, and about $200,000 was removed from the building budgets this school year.

He acknowledged school officials and others don’t know what is going to happen to the district’s student enrollment.