CURMUDGUCATION: AZ: What Teacher Layoffs Look Like In An Anti-Teacher State

CURMUDGUCATION: AZ: What Teacher Layoffs Look Like In An Anti-Teacher State

AZ: What Teacher Layoffs Look Like In An Anti-Teacher State

Carie Caruso conferenced with her supervisor and was told she was a highly effective teacher. The next day, in an online meeting, she was told that she was out of a job. 47 other teachers were part of that meeting.

Angela Philpot had 23 years of experience, but this week she was one of the 150 teachers laid off by Gilbert Public Schools in a surprise meeting with a principal who read a scripted statement from the district. No comments or questions were allowed. Philpot is an Arizona Education Association officer.

Arizona public schools have seen a big drop in enrollment this year. The Arizona School Boards Association says that 40,000 children became "ghost students"-- they just didn't show up,. and nobody knows where they were. About half of the drop in enrollment are kindergarten and first grade students. Charter schools have seen a slight growth (about 18,000), but not enough to account for all the public school losses.

And so, in an attempt to "right-size" budgets, school districts are chopping staff.

A decade or so ago, Arizona's legislature decreed that these sorts of layoffs could not consider seniority or tenure. So how are these decisions made? With evaluation rubrics like this one: CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: AZ: What Teacher Layoffs Look Like In An Anti-Teacher State

Education Layoffs Looming? Districts Start To Give Some Teachers The Pink Slip – CBS Sacramento

Education Layoffs Looming? Districts Start To Give Some Teachers The Pink Slip – CBS Sacramento

Education Layoffs Looming? Districts Start To Give Some Teachers The Pink Slip

Big Education Ape: $225 Million In New Revenue: 10 Facts About the SCUSD Budget - Sacramento City Teachers Association - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2021/03/225-million-in-new-revenue-10-facts.html

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Amid a statewide talk of extra school funding and a push to re-open schools, some Sacramento-area districts may be battling budget cuts.

That includes preparing the pink slips for teachers and school staff, and some say the pandemic is to blame.

READ MORE:'Just Trying To Do Good': Modesto Junior College Professor Runs To Support Struggling Students

The Sacramento City Teachers Association said Sacramento City Unified is considering cutting more than 130 teachers after the school board approved that many pink slips ahead of possible lay-offs. In Placer County, those slips are already going out to staff.

“Am I going to have a job or am I going to be in that limbo for another year?” Travis Mougeotte, president of the Rocklin Teachers Professional Association, asked hypothetically, speaking on behalf of several teachers wondering where they stand.

The question is in the minds of many educators as a March deadline for layoffs looms ahead. The Rocklin Unified School District has already started preparing the pink slip for close to 30 school staff members.

“In a district of about 600 people, that’s a very noticeable number on our campuses,” said Mougeotte.

A similar situation in Sacramento, where the Sacramento City Teachers Association approved more than 130 pink slips for teachers alone, and close to the same amount for other school staff. Though the questions of if, who, and why remain to be answered.

Rocklin Unified told CBS13 the pandemic is to blame as their reason for letting teachers go, citing lower than usual enrollment. That drop in numbers, a district spokesperson said, makes adjusting staff ratios necessary.

Mougeotte wonders if it’s the right move.

READ MORE:Multi-Vehicle Crash Closes Northbound I-5 Lanes Near Highway 50 Connector In Sacramento

“I don’t know that the message of we’re going to have larger class sizes and fewer teachers is the way to recruit students back to the district,” he said. “If there’s a lot of concern about learning loss, which the state involves with some large money contingencies to put plans in place to address it, wouldn’t it be a good use of our money to keep smaller class sizes and keep those people?”

It’s a different scenario in Elk Grove, though. The biggest district in the Sacramento area continues to hire a couple hundred new staff members.

“We’re very fortunate. A little bit down – but pretty much on par for where we need to be,” said Xanthi Pinkerton, the Elk Grove Unified School District’s spokesperson.

But news of possible layoffs comes as a shock to families like Corina Gilette’s, who fears losing a teacher in an already uncertain time.

“That’s scary – cause we really need our teachers,” Gilette said.

CBS13 also reached out to several school districts. Stockton Unified said there are plans to lay off some teachers due to a “significant decline in enrollment caused by the pandemic.” The district is also navigating a $22M structural budget deficit.

San Juan Unified and Lodi schools say they don’t plan to layoff teachers, but other districts did not respond to calls or emails by the time this story was filed.

MORE NEWS:How Fast Is Too Fast? As California Starts to Reopen, COVID Risk Still Remains

Districts must notify teachers by the state’s March 15 deadline if their jobs are in jeopardy.

Education Layoffs Looming? Districts Start To Give Some Teachers The Pink Slip – CBS Sacramento

Are We Staring at Teacher Layoffs? Or, Worse? | Ed In The Apple

Are We Staring at Teacher Layoffs? Or, Worse? | Ed In The Apple

Are We Staring at Teacher Layoffs? Or, Worse?

Is “Black Tuesday” (Tuesday, October 29, 1929) hovering? Are we a few weeks or months away from the economic cliff?

The “roaring twenties,” seemingly endless increases in stock prices, three consecutive Republican presidents (Harding, Coolidge and Hoover), the flu pandemic was gone, a farm depression was concerning; however, the nation appeared to be booming.

On March 4, 1929, at his presidential inauguration, Herbert Hoover stated, “I have no fears for the future of our country. It is bright with hope.” Most Americans shared his optimism. They believed that the prosperity of the 1920s would continue, and that the country was moving closer to a land of abundance for all. Little could Hoover imagine that barely a year into his presidency, shantytowns known as “Homerville’s” would emerge on the fringes of most major cities, newspapers covering the homeless would be called “Hoover blankets,” and pants pockets, turned inside-out to show their emptiness, would become “Hoover flags.”

The stock market allowed anyone to buy stocks “on margin,” borrowing 90% of the cost of the stock from the broker, if the stock lost 10% of its value, the broker could sell the stock, the investor losing everything, for investors, seemed CONTINUE READING: Are We Staring at Teacher Layoffs? Or, Worse? | Ed In The Apple

Teacher: 12 things we must consider before reopening schools - The Washington Post

Teacher: 12 things we must consider before reopening schools - The Washington Post

12 inconvenient truths about schools and kids that should be considered before reopening — from a teacher

As other countries reopen their schools or are well on their way to doing so, school districts in the United States are still putting together their plans for the 2020-21 school year, which is supposed to start next month in many parts of the country.

Districts are surveying parents and teachers, looking at advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and contemplating guidance from their state governments as they figure out what will work best in their communities.

But, with concerns about insufficient funding, the infection rate of the coronavirus in individual communities and other issues, many teachers are questioning whether some of the plans make sense. I recently published a post by Louisiana teacher Mercedes Schneider titled, “‘Parents need to go to work’ does not stop covid-19 at the school entrance.”

Here is a new piece on the subject, this by New Jersey educator Mark Weber, who looks at a dozen “inconvenient truths” about how schools work that policymakers should consider when developing reopening plans.

Weber is a full-time music teacher in Warren Township, N.J., and a part-time lecturer at the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University. He is also special analyst for education policy at New Jersey Policy Perspective, a progressive nonprofit that pushes policy change to advance economic justice and prosperity for all through evidence-based, independent research, analysis and advocacy.

This is a shortened version of a piece that appeared on his blog, jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com, and he gave me permission to publish it.

By Mark Weber

I’ve read and heard a lot of commentary from a lot of people who seem to think we can quickly prepare for reopening schools in the fall, as long as we have some flexibility and maybe some extra resources. I’ll be the first to say (along with others) that more funding is absolutely required if we’re going to have any chance of reopening schools. CONTINUE READING: Teacher: 12 things we must consider before reopening schools - The Washington Post

NYC Educator: Another Letter from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: Another Letter from the Chancellor

Another Letter from the Chancellor

Dear Colleagues,  

Today is the last day of the most challenging, most intense school year we have ever experienced. You got tossed into the deep end, and I shaved my mustache. Every single one of you confronted major disruptions to your lives, which often imposed great stress on you and your families. And yet I still plan to fire thousands of you so I can hire people here at Tweed for 200K each to join me at gala luncheons.

I am absolutely preening with pride, the proudest professional pride that pricks and prods ponderously at the prickliest of princesses. My gratitude to you runs deep. Console yourself with that after you get those pink slips. Believe me, my well-compensated staff and I will continue to think about you as you toil away at whatever menial jobs you can muster during an active apocalypse.

This school year was divided, of course, between “pre-COVID” and “post-COVID.”  Before the pandemic upended our lives, we opened more pre-K Dual Language programs , Community Schools, and reached record high college enrollment rates . We hope you all remember that stuff as opposed to being sent to work in hotbeds of infection even as we deemed it too risky for rich people to sit in $800 seats to Hamilton. Try not to dwell on how we removed guidance counselors, cut the budget, and made you the most overqualified employee at Kinko's.

You suddenly confronted the enormous challenge of transforming to remote teaching, learning, and working. Many of you. like me, had no idea what you were doing and just hoped for the best. Yet with amazing support from one another, and none whatsoever from us, you all managed to shift to an entirely new way of conducting your work. Believe me, after all that work you did, it isn't easy to just throw you under the bus like this.

The personal toll of the coronavirus on our City, our friends and families, and the DOE itself is tragic. It has left us all struggling with a relentless sense of grief. Fortunately, it hasn't given the mayor or me so much grief that we aren't willing to send those of you we aren't firing right back into the belly of the beast. You CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Another Letter from the Chancellor