Posts Tagged ‘Reduction in Force’

5 de Mayo Victory for California Teachers

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

My school district is taking teachers off the Reduction in Force (RIF) list after negotiations with the district’s local union, a branch of California Teachers Association-National Education Association (CTA-NEA).  Union representatives have agreed to five furlough days, that is, no pay for a break during the fall term.

Unlike vacation days which are included in the teacher’s yearly salary, furlough days save money.  Instead of a battle negotiating revision of the pay schedule to lower salaries, furlough days seem to be preferable.  Perhaps the union’s thinking is that unpaid furlough days can be eliminated when the funds for schools increase someday.  (No way will that happen anytime soon in California!) If the state finally does conquer its budget, another revision of the salary scale would have to be renegotiated.  We can see the lines drawn right now in Oakland over salary negotiations in a poor district.

Anyway, due to retirements and resignations in my district 45 third year teachers who were on the countdown list for layoffs were notified last week that they will be working next year.  I’m happy for them and my chances of being retained are looking better.

I don’t know what will happen in big districts like Oakland or San Francisco which has a much worse deficit than my mid-size district that has already passed a parcel tax to support its schools.  Several parcel taxes-or extensions of parcel tax time limits-will be on the June and/or November ballots this year for a number of school districts up and down the state.

Our superintendent is lucky.  We have a PTA and Foundation group that is using every ounce of persuasion to get parents and the community businesses to support the schools.

May 4, 70 businesses in the surrounding shopping areas donated a percentage of their sales for the day to the Foundation.  It’s one of those win-win deals.  The businesses make money on a slow day and the schools benefit from the community support.

So far the Foundation has raised more than one and a half million $$, mainly so that school faculty and staff aren’t laid off, which would make class sizes larger, fewer librarians and other resource teachers available, and classified support minimal.

On Wednesday May 5 we will commemorate Cinco de Mayo, a festival celebrated by Mexico and Californians of Mexican descent, that honors a single victorious battle in Mexico against the French well over 100 years ago.  I hope I will be celebrating the single-handed collection of enough funds to support our school district and keep the rest of us employed.

There are over 6 million students in California.  Do voting adults in this state have to be this close to a school collapse before they are willing to put money in the pot for the student education they say they support?

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Posted in California Teachers Association, layoff notices, public schools, school community |
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The Dreaded Pink Slip

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Since the first of February this year, as the anxiety about the budget shortages in California rose to an uproar, teachers everywhere in the state, temporary status or not, worried and worried some more in the lunch room, on the playground, in the car, during dinner at home.

In my modest suburban district, fifteen teachers were advised about possible layoffs at staff meetings, which would mean that 400-450 students wouldn’t have a teacher in the Fall.  That’s a lot of students crammed into other classes (right now the ratio is 20 to 1 in the primary grades, 32 to 1 in the upper grades) in a district with only six elementary sites, about 450 students per site.  The teachers for an entire school-gone.

The human resource department in a California school district is mandated to inform employees who may be laid off by March 13 of the current year and, sure enough, as a new teacher I received by certified mail a formal letter on cream colored school district stationery detailing my preliminary layoff notice, i.e., the dreaded ‘pink slip,’ also known as the reduction in force (RIF) notice.

In the meantime, I lead my fourth graders in their study of the California Gold Rush.  They loved it.  We took a field trip to the nearest nature conservancy site, organized by volunteer docents who know as much about the flora and fauna of the area as the most experienced botanists and zoologists at the two major universities in the Bay Area.  In fact, many docents are probably retired professors.  The students have been learning to ‘be writers’ in order to pass the state writing exam that all fourth graders must take.  They geared up for the famous state exams that determine whether or not the school has made its NCLB benchmark.  All that and more, as any teacher knows, while I waited to hear if I was going to teach again in the Fall.

In the middle of April, just as I could no longer stand the suspense and sat at the computer to email the human resources supervisor, an email from him popped up.  Nothing has changed in the state budget mess, as anyone knows from the results of the special election, although the district administration may have received notice about the federal stimulus funds accorded to our modest district, but I was assigned to the same school for next year after all, as a second year employee.  What a relief.  Last night at Open House I could smile and enjoy the children and their parents, no anxiety to cloud the evening.

I’m happy that I won’t have to spend the summer at the local unemployment office-and, believe me, the unemployment office is happy they won’t have to look at me every week.

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Posted in NCLB, layoff notices, public schools, stimulus funds |
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