NEWS ANALYSIS: Proposed teacher layoffs signal deeper problems for troubled LAUSD



If the Los Angeles Unified School District had a motto, it might be: when it rains it pours.  The besieged school district has been locked in a bitter feud with United Teachers of Los Angeles, which represents district teachers, thousands of whom will lose their jobs when the 2009-10 school year begins in July.

On April 14, the school board voted to approve layoffs that affect thousands of union teachers and other district employees.  Even though their contract forbids them from striking, UTLA members voted to approve a work stoppage on May 15, a day of standardized testing for many students.

On Tuesday, a Los Angeles judge issued a restraining order against the organization, barring them from abandoning their classes on Friday.

“Gathering kids in an auditorium with little supervision is not a good thing,” said Superior Court Judge James Chalfant.  In addition to student health and safety concerns, the judge cited UTLA’s contract with the school board, which included an agreement to avoid work stoppages. 

Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines urged the union to come back to the table, and accept furloughs and pay cuts to avoid cutbacks. 

The teachers have few bargaining chips left, and may have to come to terms with the layoffs.  Teachers rallied outside schools on Friday morning, but returned to their classrooms by the time the first bell rang.  

Underachieving high schools in South Los Angeles will be hard hit by the layoffs, teacher to student rations will increase to 42 teachers per student.  Also lost are counselors and special programs that help prevent students from dropping out.

Photographs of Barack Obama are common fixtures in South Los Angeles schools, but students, parents and teachers are finding other signs of hope in LAUSD scarce.

The teacher strike is another sign of the growing divide between the community and the central LAUSD administration, which has a legacy of costly mismanagement.

The district faced a $596 million budget hole for the 2009-10 school year, and thousands of employees have been sacrificed to make the district solvent.   Depending on the results of the May 19th special election, even more money could be cut from the state education coffers. 

February 10: The UTLA announces it

will consider a vote to authorize

a teacher walkout, even though it

would violate their contract.

Superintendent Cortines originally came up with a motion in early March to address the looming crisis, and brought it to the school board.  That first plan called for layoffs of more than 8,000 employees, including thousands of teachers.

Teachers, students, and parents rallied outside schools before the first bell rang.  They swarmed school board meetings, chanting “Let us in!” and “Save our teachers! Save our schools!”  Some teachers said they were willing to be dragged away from the protest in handcuffs.

The school board was divided, and postponed its decision.  The meeting on March 24 was held in a private session, but the closed doors did not keep away protesters, many of whom rushed over after the school day ended.

March 24: Hundred of teachers,

parents and students gather

at the district headquarters

The mayor got involved, proposing employees accept a 3 percent reduction in salary, a solution similar to the one he proposed for saving city workers from layoffs.

Maywood Mayor pro tem, Ana Rizo, came to the April 14th school board meeting to appeal for teachers’ jobs.

“In my family, we were a very low income family, and I was probably with my teachers more than I was with my parents, because they had multiple jobs, she said.  “For teachers to be with our kids so much, it would really be like taking away another parent from them.”The board held several extra special sessions to discuss the motion with community members, but eventually Cortines threatened to resign from his post if a decision was not reached.

April 14: After months of

demonstrations, the board

approves the layoffs

 On April 14, after months of debate and debacle, Cortines called for another vote.  The board voted 4-3 to authorize the layoffs of 5,000 employees.  That includes teachers, counselors, janitors and other positions.

Most of the lost educators are young teachers who have not yet received job tenure.  The superintendent has said he will continue to work with schools to find ways to bring back teachers.

One of the plans involves early retirement.  The district is offering senior employees early retirement for the first time in 17 years.  The deadline for applying for early retirement was extended until May 8th so that more employees will sign up.  So far thousands of teachers have volunteered, which will allow the district to rescind layoff notices to some of its younger teachers whose jobs are on the line.

Casualties included newest teachers

Araceli Castro, a fifth grade teacher at Hoover Elementary school, is one of the new teachers affected by the layoffs.  “After receiving my bachelors, multiple subject teaching credentials, and a masters, I decided to take my newly learned skills back to the community I grew up in,” she told the board members.  “You have put thousands of teachers like me on the back burner, if I am let go, there is no guarantee that I will ever return.

“I’ve always begun my first day of class telling my students I was once in your seat, I grew up in your community and…I fear they will be afraid to aspire to their own dreams because they see how quickly everything can be taken away from them.  All teachers are important whether its their first year or their retirement year, our profession thrives on new ideas and energy that fresh minds bring into our schools.”

Partly because of intense pressure from teachers, the board delayed making a decision for more than a month.  In that time, a plan was made to rescind the layoff notices of about 2,000 elementary school teachers using funds from Obama’s stimulus package.  At the April 14th school board meeting, school board officials praised the governor for his

quick action to secure stimulus funds, which saved thousands of jobs. 

UTLA members hope to see that number go up as the continue to lobby the district.  Their May, 15 work stoppage is intended to turn the heat up on the central administration. Eighty three percent, or $160 million,of the state’s stabilization funding from the stimulus bill are being used in the upcoming school year to save 2,600 jobs.

Parents and teachers appealed to the board to use more funds to save more jobs, but Cortines refused.  Rumors circulated that the district would receive more than enough money to hire back every teacher from the stimulus funds.  Cortines quickly shot down those hopes, calling the rumor “an insidious lie.” By spending the funds over two years, instead of one, Cortines said ultimately more jobs will be saved.

“If LAUSD uses all of the stimulus money for 2009-2010, we would have to

lay off twice as many employees in the following year,” the superintendent said.

The UTLA disagreed, and pressed the district to immediately use all available funds to prevent layoffs.  If money from the Economic Stability and Recovery Act are insufficient to save all their teacher’s jobs, UTLA recommended that the district trim the fat within its own offices to prevent adverse effects on classroom size and student performance.

Cortines insisted he had already taken steps to reduce the size of the central administration at the request of the community.

“I have been asked to reduced the central administration, I have reduced the central administration, there were 4,000, I cut a quarter,” he said at a school board meeting. 

May 15: citing student safety, a judge

issues a restraining order

against UTLA and ends the walkout

plans

Extra funds will be needed in the 2010-2011 school year as well.  The school district has been operating with a deficit for about 14 months.  The state budget problems caused that figure to balloon, and the district was faced with a mid year 140 million deficit.   To avoid teacher layoffs, the district cut 82 million in arts classes, after-school programs, music, and other special programs.  The district also lost 535 administrative positions, but managed to avoid losing teachers.

“We chose not to layoff probationary teachers in the middle of the current 2008-2009

school year days before the second semester began.  We did not want to disrupt

classrooms and schools,” the superintendent said in a statement.

The solutions to the mid-year deficit were one time fixes.  They did not address the projected deficits, more than $100 million, the district faces in the next three years.  And the pressure from state law mandates that the district demonstrate its ability to balance its budget for the next three financial years.  By June, the district has to come up with the funds to solve the crisis, and the layoffs make up most of the deficit.  In July, they will take affect.

  

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