Thread: CA At least 238 educators receive layoff notices countywide

18 comments--only one addresses illegal immigration

At least 238 educators receive layoff notices countywide

By J.M. Brown - Sentinel staff writer
Article Launched: 03/17/2008 11:21:09 AM PDT


Landmark School teachers - many wearing pink signifying the pink slip notices sent out this week to more than a 100 teachers in the PVUSD - gather after work to talk about impending layoffs. (Dan Coyro/Sentinel)Beware the Ides of March.
That was the warning a soothsayer gave Julius Caesar as he walked to the Roman Senate on the 15th day of March and into the hands of dagger-wielding dissenters. After Shakespeare wrote the line in his account of Caesar's assassination, the haunting phrase, which once innocently signified a day near the middle of each month, took on a wider cultural understanding of imminent doom.

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For teachers, counselors and other certificated staff at public schools across Santa Cruz County, March 15 carries no less symbolic a meaning. It was the deadline by which public school districts in California were required by law to issue notices of potential layoff.

According to district officials Friday, at least 238 teachers, counselors, administrators and other certificated employees in the Pajaro Valley, Santa Cruz City and Scotts Valley school districts - the county's largest - were expected to be handed or mailed pink slips by Saturday's deadline. The notices alert them to the possibility that they may be laid off or their hours reduced, but are not a guarantee they will lose their jobs. The other large district, San Lorenzo Valley, avoided making layoffs by using reserves and one-time money, as well as canceling a pay raise that had been budgeted


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but not negotiated.
Districts can rescind notices by May 15, which is when they also have to issue layoff warnings to any instructional aides, library assistants, cafeteria workers, secretaries or other classified employees whose positions could get eliminated or reduced.

While a small portion of the cuts were inevitable due to the county's perennial declining enrollment problem, the majority were made in preparation of the governor's proposed $4 billion in cuts to K-12 funding - which

Landmark School Principal Jennifer Wildman listens to many of her teachers gathered after school Friday to talk about pink slip notices many received this week. (Dan Coyro/Sentinel)represents the worst gutting for California schools in five years. The governor's office and a top lawmaker say they are committed to working out a solution to the state deficit as early as possible so school districts will know if they can rescind notices or hire back temporary employees whose contracts expire at the end of the school year.
But as county Superintendent of Education Michael Watkins said, the state gave districts no choice but to issue preliminary layoff notices. Some districts now run the risk of handing in qualified or negative budgets and their already-lean reserves are threatened.

"It's what I expected," Watkins said. "It's a sad situation. What we can do now is be advocates for a long-term sustainable funding plan that will negate these types of intrusive actions. This has not only significant ramifications to students but to families."

The 7 percent in revenue limit reductions, plus special education reductions and categorical funding cuts, are only exacerbated by rising health care costs and pay increases that fall way short of cost-of-living hikes. While red ink on spreadsheets may help close the budget gap on paper, there are junior educators who are really behind the numbers as they fall victim to the complicated bumping-rights system that ranks credentialed employees.

Pajaro Valley: 201 notices

Teachers at the county's largest district, Pajaro Valley Unified, were hardest hit. As of Friday, the district issued 201 notices of potential layoff to cover the equivalent of nearly 189 full-time teaching, counseling, nursing and administrative positions. The district must reduce a $9.4 million hole in next year's budget. Classified workers - secretaries, bus drivers, food servers and maintenance workers - also may get notices, though they won't be out for a month or so.

At Landmark Elementary School in Watsonville, Principal Jennifer Wildman made a dozen calls Thursday night to tell teachers they'd be getting notices, and she'd previously informed two others. If the layoffs become final, the school would lose a third of its teaching staff, as well as its assistant principal and nurse.

Landmark is suffering because many of the teachers are just starting out and don't have tenure, Wildman said. The whole school is feeling the pain, and most everyone, from the secretary to the principal, wore pink Friday in solidarity.

"We work so hard, this team of people. They have worked together so intensively during school hours, trainings on Saturdays," Wildman said. "Knowing that we'll be there next year and some won't, it's unbearable."

Interim Superintendent Mary Anne Mays said the district had to give the notices to preserve options for balancing the budget. She doesn't think all the positions will be cut when final decisions are made, possibly by the second week of April. But given the magnitude of the deficit, about 10 percent of the district's general fund, there's no way to avoid pain.

"When 80 to 85 percent of your budget is people, people are going to be affected," Mays said.

Teachers at Landmark spoke of crying as they arrived at school Friday, and expressed anger at state officials who impose mandates but don't provide the funding to back them up.

Fourth-grade teacher Ethan Cristobal was among those who received notice, along with his wife, Darci, who teaches a kindergarten/first-grade class.

"Our whole family is out," he said.

Cristobal wonders if the public understands how much teachers give - how when dollars are cut, they dig deeper into their own pockets to make sure their students don't go without, and how they give extra hours, nights and weekends to the job.

"Teaching is a calling," Cristobal said. "I don't want to say you're born to it, but it takes a commitment. ... We bend over backwards to find ways to make it work. Maybe the public doesn't see how much extra care, love and devotion we put into it."

Santa Cruz: 32 notices

Santa Cruz City Schools issued preliminary reduction notices to 22 employees who work the equivalent of 15 full-time positions in grades 7-12 and 10 administrative employees who work the equivalent of 2.8 positions, Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Tanya Krause said Friday. The majority of the instruction positions were in high school, where the board of trustees targeted English, math, social science and other content areas for reduction in order to save small class sizes in K-6.

To cut a total of $1.5 million from next year's budget, the district also has identified 3 percent reductions in classified personnel at all school sites and the equivalent of 17 temporary positions filled by 31 people who may not be asked to return. But the district, the county's second largest with about 7,000 students, does not have to act on those proposed cuts to noncertificated staff until later.

Instead, Krause spent her morning personally handing notices to about 10 certificated employees, while others were mailed. To show she hated being the district's Grim Reaper, Krause wore a pink shirt to demonstrate her compassion and shared sense of grief, even though the notices are actually white, not pink.

"It is the most difficult part of my job, it is personally very upsetting to me," Krause said of issuing notices. "Some of the names I'm looking at I know are great teachers who are important in students' lives."

She said some employees told her they expected to be cut, but others were surprised because they don't understand the bumping system. If an employee whose position gets cut holds a credential to take on another position held by a junior colleague, the senior employee gets to bump down.

"Some people were very graceful," she said. "I appreciate that they didn't shoot the messenger."

Suz Howells, whose daughters Annie and Sophie attend the district's Mission Hill Middle School, called the education budget process "infuriating."

"I worry about the long-term impact on teachers who receive pink slips year after year," said Howells, who is the school's site council chair. "The emotion cost is incalculable. I certainly wouldn't return to a profession with that degree of uncertainty."

Still, she commended the district for getting input from parents, teachers and administrators about where to make cuts.

"What's different this time is that locally, we're all in it together," she said. "We didn't make this problem, it was handed to us from Sacramento. We'll fix it here, but we'll fight it there."

Scotts Valley:

At least five notices

The school board approved cutting at least 12 positions that include teachers, counselors and administration to help reach the goal of cutting $1.1 million. Despite requests from the Sentinel, Superintendent Susan Silver did not provide the exact number of notices expected to be issued, but said the number of positions targeted for possible layoff corresponded to a similar number in actual workers.

However, Scotts Valley Education Association President Ann Codd, who represents certificated employees, said only four teachers and a school nurse received notices Friday that their positions could be reduced. Codd said she did not immediately know what accounted for the disparity, but said she did not believe the district intended to mail any notices.

The board originally had approved deeper cuts, but scaled back to save seven K-6 teaching positions in an effort to salvage class-size reduction. Silver also has identified the equivalent of five classified positions - in maintenance, custodian, librarian and other services - to trim in May if necessary.

A fix in sight?

Sabrina Lockhart, a spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the state's chief executive "understands these cuts are difficult, but unfortunately they are necessary until we get our budget in line." She said the governor is pushing for long-term reform in the state's formula-driven expenditures, such as Proposition 98's minimum-funding plan for education, by creating a rainy-day fund that stows away cash in good years instead of requiring the government to spend it.

"That way, schools won't have to go through the painful exercise of sending pink slips to teachers," Lockhart said, adding that the governor is pushing for lawmakers to hammer out a budget as soon as possible. "He says his door is open 24-7. We've seen lawmakers traveling the state, but haven't seen a lot in terms of a counter proposal."

Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, who chairs the budget committee, said legislators are locked in a battle over raising taxes and other revenues versus simply cutting expenses - a fight that is deeply defined by politics and complicated by a two-thirds required vote on budgetary matters. On a straight party vote last week, the Assembly voted down a Democratic proposal to assess $1.2 billion in taxes on oil companies that Laird said was designed to restore immediate education funding before the March 15 deadline for issuing layoff notices to teachers. Laird said California needs to reverse $7 billion in tax relief to bolster education and social spending formulas.

"The formulas worked before the tax relief - they don't work now," Laird said. "You give away the revenue, then blame the revenue for the shortfall."

School boards statewide have been begging for the governor to reinstate the vehicle licensing fee, which delivered about $3.8 billion annually to education and other programs at the time Schwarzenegger rode into office on the promise of eliminating it. If the governor hadn't cut the fee paid by motor vehicle owners, Laird said it would now offer around $4.9 billion annually.

Although Lockhart said "everything is on the table" as far as the governor goes, she said his plan does not include reinstating the vehicle licensing fee because "he doesn't see that raising revenue is the right way to go" when there are "structural gaps" in the budget formulas. "Sometimes the state is forced to spend more even though it doesn't have the money to pay for it."

If the governor has made it clear he won't OK new taxes, Laird said, where does he expect the revenue to come from? "Everything is on the table except for what he doesn't want to be on the table."

Contact J.M. Brown at 429-2410 or jbrown@santacruzsentinel.com. Contact Donna Jones at 763-4505 or djones@santacruzsentinel.com.

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Although we know why they have such a budget shortfall overall, I have to wonder how many of the pink slipped workers and teachers did not speak Spanish? I'd love to hear from someone on the inside on that question.

Originally Posted by AE

Although we know why they have such a budget shortfall overall, I have to wonder how many of the pink slipped workers and teachers did not speak Spanish? I'd love to hear from someone on the inside on that question.

I was thinking the exact same thing.Whats happening there is moving to AZ.We cant afford illegals nor should we have to.

Originally Posted by AE

Although we know why they have such a budget shortfall overall, I have to wonder how many of the pink slipped workers and teachers did not speak Spanish? I'd love to hear from someone on the inside on that question.

I was thinking the exact same thing.Whats happening there is moving to AZ.We cant afford illegals nor should we have to.

Get rid of bilingual teachers who only are needed for spanish speaking students and get rid of esl classes and california could save hundreds of millions. And get rid of those kids here illegally, many IA admit they bring their kids to the US for the free education so cut it off by demanding SSN for parents and kids. Problem solved.

You know what this is a sign of? California scumbing to a third world population. When they let the schools go like that, even for Americans it is bad. If I was there I would be getting myself and my children out of there and fast.

Will schools close in California the way hospital ER's have?

They won't solve the problem until they acknowledge the cause and take action.

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

They leave the illegals in schools but layoff hundreds of teachers which will result in even more crowded conditions and further decline in the educational experience for American Children who are citizens. If I had children, I would find any way possible to make sure they received a private education. They would not step foot in a public school!

Whatever, this state is beyond help and will be until they stop playing games and finally admit that illegal invaders are sinking this state faster than the Titanic.

And they somehow expect home-schooled kids to enroll in CA schools? Maybe now CA voters will truly see how much is being sucked up by illegal aliens and vote their sympathizers out.

All of you guys are so correct in your assessments. Unfortunately California is quickly transforming into a third world country thanks to the massive illegal alien population and the enormous strain it continues to place on the economy. Unless the state and/or federal government finally acknowledge and deal with this problem, the situation is going to continue to spiral downward until there is little difference between Mexico and California. And just as quickly as American settlers migrated west during the California Gold Rush, they will begin to leave.