MONROE - A handful of teachers will soon be reassigned to other schools. Three more might be hired.

After analyzing student enrollment at the 20th day of school, Union County Public Schools is shuffling teachers from overstaffed to understaffed schools.

As of Tuesday, there were 39,068 students in UCPS, 1,261 fewer than anticipated.

David Clarke, assistant superintendent for human resources, called the projections “soft numbers”; they were the schools’ best estimates of how many students they would have. Projections are often made several months before school starts and before kindergarten registration.

It’s normal for projections to be off, Superintendent Ed Davis said, and in the past, UCPS has been able to hire more people for understaffed schools and keep personnel at overstaffed schools if that overage was slight.

“We don’t have that flexibility now,” Davis said.

Final allotted positions depend on actual enrollment, taken the 20th day of school. North Carolina allotted 1,849 teachers for UCPS this year, later

asking the school system to revert a chunk of funding back to the state.

Most of those cuts came from 92 teaching positions that were vacated by retiring teachers, or had not yet been filled, Clarke said.

No full-contract teachers lost their jobs, and other positions were held open in case the system was again asked to give positions back.

UCPS now has about 1,730 teachers.

Davis said there is a possibility that the state will ask UCPS to cut more positions, but doesn’t

expect that to mean layoffs.

The extra positions left unfilled provide a “cushion” to avoid that, he said. The state will determine whether to cut additional positions by the 40th day of school.

Right now, the concern is balancing out the student-teacher ratio.

“If a school is underallotted, where are their greatest needs for teachers?” Clarke said. “If a school is overallotted, where can you move them?”

On Friday, he was confident that three positions will be up for hire, including one each at the elementary, middle and high school levels.

“There will be a couple of schools that maybe gain teachers without having a teacher reassigned,” Clarke said.

He estimated that a “handful” of teachers will be reassigned, guessing “five or six.”

When asked how that will affect class size, he said “the goal is to get as close to the county average as possible.”

The average varies by grade level.

Another 177 teachers were reassigned earlier this year and 74 interim employees’ contracts were not renewed.

Clarke said former interim employees will have the same chance to apply for the positions as anyone else.

Once UCPS determines the needs of each school, principals will be notified if their schools are gaining or losing employees. Designated teachers will learn of their reassignments in the next few days, Clarke said.