Claremont schools terminate 19 new hires amid budget crisis

This story was originally produced by the Valley News . NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative .

Tawnie Pedersen didn’t pick up her phone when it rang Friday morning at 7:40 while she was driving to her second day of new teacher orientation at the Claremont Savings Bank conference room.

But when she arrived, Pedersen learned that the unanswered call was to inform her she no longer had a job teaching special education at Stevens High School.

And she was not alone. All the district’s new hires, teachers and paraprofessionals, were told on Friday that the School Board would not be ratifying their contracts, as the district scrambles to cut costs in the middle of an unprecedented financial crisis.

In a phone interview Friday afternoon,