Public Education Can’t Take More Cuts, Pink Slips
Contact: Mike Myslinski, CTA; 408-921-5769 (cell); mmyslinski@cta.org
UNION CITY – Bay Area public schools are at a darkening crossroads after years of devastating cuts and pink slips and can’t survive without adequate funding, while the governor’s proposed budget could make matters worse, local Education Coalition members warned today at a news conference in one decimated school district in Alameda County.
California schools and community colleges have been hit by more than $20 billion in funding cuts and deferrals the past four years. Facing an estimated budget shortfall of $10.7 million next fiscal year, the New Haven Unified School District issued precautionary layoff notices to more than 100 teachers, classified employees and administrators earlier this month and is facing closing libraries and cutting art and music classes. Since 2008, the district has already reduced its classified staff by 13 percent, the teaching staff by 14 percent and the administrative staff by 23 percent. Dozens of Bay Area districts have issued hundreds and hundreds of teacher pink slips as the annual March 15 deadline looms, and thousands more are going out across the state.
“We must find significant new revenues to return our economy and school system to the top rankings they once enjoyed,” said New Haven Unified Superintendent Kari McVeigh. “New Haven has already made $15 million in cuts over the past four years. Making nearly $11 million more in reductions will be devastating for our students and community.”
Finding new revenues is critical. The state ranks 47th in per-pupil funding, and at the bottom in the ratios of students per principal (46th), per teacher (47th), per counselor (49th), and per school librarian (50th). Class sizes are soaring.
Laying off thousands of teachers in the Bay Area and statewide will hurt a generation of students, said Terri Jackson, a member of the California Teachers Association’s Board of Directors and a teacher in West Contra Costa Unified, which issued more than 53 pink slips for educators. “Every teacher we lay off breaks a bond with students and parents. We have the ninth-largest economy in the world. We must protect what staff and resources we have left and invest more in our neighborhood schools, or we jeopardize the future of our state.”
Districts are laying off thousands of classified support staff at their own peril, since these maintenance, security, clerical and other workers are critical to the operation of every district, said Allan Clark,