March 15, 2004 Page: A1
DAILY BREEZE
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Facing a fiscal future that is hazy at best, some South Bay school districts are responding to an ides of March deadline by warning dozens of teachers that they may not have jobs next year.
Districts in California are required by law to notify credentialed teachers and administrators by today if there's a possibility they may be let go over the summer. With a state spending plan far from finalized by this time, districts generally issue more than they think will be necessary to maintain financial flexibility.
But flexibility comes at a price. Educators acknowledge the mere prospect of layoffs is enough to shatter morale by driving stress and anxiety levels through the roof.
"It's terrible," said Kevin Post, president of the Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers Association. "For me, there's nothing like getting a phone call from someone in tears who is working so hard and realizing that they might not have a job here for next year. It's a really tough feeling for them, and it most certainly bothers me."
Said Donald Carrington, superintendent of the Hawthorne School District: "To put teachers and parents through this every year, I think the people in Sacramento need to take a hard look at what they're doing."
Last week, the Hawthorne school board voted unanimously to issue pink slip warnings to about 90 teachers, or close to 20 percent of the staff. That doesn't mean that all of them -- or even any of them -- will necessarily be let go.
But if the district looks like it will be short on funding following the governor's next budget proposal in May, Hawthorne may have to send out real pink slips -- depending on the number of instructors who retire or resign.
"I personally resent ­having to reassess this every year," Carrington said. "The lack of a coherent and consistent source of funding for education forces this sort of nonsense for the staff to have to experience, because we never know from one year to the next how many dollars we're going to get to carry on our programs."
This marks the third consecutive year that the Hawthorne district has issued warning notices. Actual layoffs were avoided the first two years, Carrington says.
For the El Segundo Unified School District, it's the second straight year of notices.
El Segundo Superintendent Bruce Auld said many districts went years and even decades without the threat of layoffs before California's economy began its downhill slide. Now, warning letters are becoming an annual event.
"It's part of the landscape right now because of the economic problems we're facing," he said.
At its last board meeting, El Segundo trustees voted to send notices to 20 teachers and one assistant principal. Auld said a similar number was sent out last year, and though a music instructor and an art teacher eventually wound up on the chopping block, both positions were rescued by the El Segundo Education Foundation, which stepped forward with funding in June, he said.
"This just gives the board flexibility," Auld said. "We certainly hope that we're not going to lose any teachers or administrators."
The Los Angeles Unified School District, meanwhile, doesn't plan to lay off any credentialed teachers this year, according to spokesman Stephanie Brady. But the district has sent layoff warnings to 171 administrators, she said.
Torrance Unified also sent notices only to administrators -- a dozen of them. Officials with the Redondo Beach and Palos Verdes Peninsula unified school districts said they were not planning to send out any layoff notices, though some teachers working on temporary contracts may be let go if enough permanent instructors return from extended leaves of absence.
The same can't be said for the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. Janet Schwabe, MBUSD's director of human resources, said 18 teachers are getting so-called "reduction in force" letters. Of those, four call for only part-time reductions. Schwabe said cuts will likely impact art, music and physical education programs at the elementary school level as well as staffing allocations at the middle and high school levels.
Last month, the MBUSD board voted to eliminate the full-time equivalent of about 20 instructional assistants in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms. But as employees without teaching credentials, the district is not required to send out March 15 warnings.
Still, with a new superintendent and business chief committed to re-establishing fiscal stability through about $5 million in cuts, most acknowledge it could have been much worse for Manhattan Beach.
Schwabe said the district was looking at eliminating class-size reduction when it issued 54 notices last year. But officials were able to change those plans and rescind the letters when the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation and other community members chipped in with about $2 million in donations.
"We're hoping that by taking a tough stand right now," Schwabe said, "we'll sort of have a calm three years where we won't have to do this every year."
The Centinela Valley Union High School District, meanwhile, has decided to send notices of a different kind. At its meeting last week, union leaders were livid after trustees voted to authorize the outright dismissal of 43 first- and second-year probationary teachers through so-called letters of "non-re-election."
In a later interview, board President Maria Calix said the firings were personnel matters and declined to offer specifics. Scott McVarish, executive director of South Bay United Teachers, characterized the move as retaliation against teachers who actively supported critical candidates during the last board election.
"That's never done," McVarish said. "I've never heard of 15 percent of teachers being fired."
Jaime Perez, a special education instructor who teaches algebra at Leuzinger High in Lawndale, said he was initially outraged when he heard his name was on the list. That outrage ultimately gave way to depression and then acceptance, he said.
"One of the reasons that I chose this district was that I accepted the challenge of teaching at a school with kids who were underprivileged," he said. "When I found out I was on the list, it just shattered my dreams of continuing with Leuzinger and the Centinela Valley."
With a wife and four boys ages 8 to 17, Perez said he's already looking for work elsewhere.
"I'm out there pounding the pavement right now," he said.
Author: Ian Hanigan
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Tags: district budget, education, teachers, union, scott mcvarish
Article source: Free K-12 Education Articles.
