The Choices of Downsizing

"I am sorry to tell you that our estimated enrollment is down 68 students for next year. We are anticipating having to cut our faculty by at least three full-time people. As principals, you need to begin thinking about these cuts as contracts will be issued in the next three weeks. Be prepared with your recommendations by next Tuesday"

These are nightmare words for a private school principal. How does a leader let a trusted employee go? In these tough economic times, many Christian schools across the nation are losing enrollment and thus are faced with downsizing the faculty. These personnel decisions are not just matters of seniority, experience and academic credentials - they are choices involving friends, colleagues, kindred spirits, brothers and sisters in the ministry. These are decisions that shake the emotional core of your heart; that pound away at your soul; that keep you awake at night with a mind racing to find some answer to save jobs.

The superintendent wants your suggestions on Tuesday, so you play out as many scenarios as possible and all of them leave you feeling empty when you draw the bottom line. Veteran teachers in positions of vulnerability.... new teachers with zeal and that something special but on the bottom of the experience ladder.... close friends - your kids grew up together in the school and played on the same basketball team... sacrificial teachers who love their students and have poured their lives into the ministry. There seems to be no right answer!! And yet your suggestions are submitted

The other side of this economic coin is painful as well. As one of teachers on the short list, how do you make sense of a termination? There was not a negative job evaluation, no reprimand for unwise classroom management, no complaints from parents, no rumblings from discontented students.

"I'm sorry Dave, but because of a downturn in student enrollment and the necessity to live within a balanced budget, I do not have a contract to offer you this year." How do you take that news, assimilate it, evaluate it and embrace it? How do you go home and tell your spouse that you need to find a new job for next year? How do you tell you children that you might have to move away from their friends?

How do you deal with feelings of disappointment, betrayal and anger? If the announcement comes from left-field somewhere and has caught you in a blind-side, how do you catch your balance and maintain your equilibrium? Tears of reality...cries of unfairness...words of frustration... the silence of numbness. Where is the band-aid to make it feel all better?

Both sides of this coin need the grace of God! Making the decision and receiving the decision must be accomplished in the presence of the sovereignty of God. Neither the situation nor the decision have caught God off-guard. He is in control even in the midst of chaos. It is in these times when the words of the hymn writer are tested, "Trust and Obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to Trust and Obey."

The closing of one chapter means the opening of another. Positive change often occurs because it is forced upon us. Decisions made for outside of our control should push us and pull us into the presence of God. These kinds of surprises can allow us to see with glasses of discernment, if we seek the will of God in the midst on confusion. Life-altering changes like these are ways that God can use to shape our character, direct our steps, and move us on to another adventure in faith.

For the decision maker: pray, pray, pray and then trust God for his gracious plan in the lives of your colleagues. For the decision recipient: pray, pray, pray and then hold on... your next chapter in God's amazing race in your life is about to begin.

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