Just speculating ... I know nothing of the specific situation re: state funding, but let's look at a couple things from 30,000 feet.
For all its successes on the football field, Richland Springs has been losing students over the last several years. Went from D1 to D2 and the current UIL count is 38. On the UIL alignment rank order document, it's 31 pages. Richland Springs is on the 30th page (sixman schools start on page 26). There are only about 30 high schools in the UIL smaller than that.
Not sure how the economics works in public schools, but it can't be that much different that private schools. Enrollment drops and you need to cut costs. You cut what you can for awhile but at some time, you have to deal with your largest cost -- personnel. Sooner or later, a school in that position is going to have to say we need to cut "x" number of positions. Often, making that realization sooner than later takes away much harder decisions down the road (as opposed to our current crop of "leaders" whose idea is to kick the can down the road).
Perhaps Coach Burkhart and his wife are helping the district make that change and not affect others who might find it harder to move between jobs.
I was talking to a friend at a large metro district recently, and she told me that her district rarely hires a veteran teacher, because they can hire some new college graduate significantly cheaper and not have to deal with perceived "bad habits" because "that's the way I've done it for years," they can "train" the newbie to do it their way.
Best wishes to Jerry and his family as they move on; and best wishes to Richland Springs. They'll both do just fine.
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http://www.uiltexas.org/files/alignment ... _Order.pdf)
