Education Freestyle

Source: San Francisco Gate

Pink slips will reported go out next month to some 900 San Francisco teachers and administrators in a need to brace for a $113 million district-wide shortfall over the next two years.

The school board approved the layoff notices Tuesday night, with district officials saying they hoped to rescind many of themas soon as possible, but given the dire budget situation, the cuts to programs and staff are bound to be massive.

The layoff notices must be sent to teachers by the state’s March 15 deadline notifying them that they might not have a job next year. The notices could be rescinded in the spring or summer when the district has a clearer understanding of it budget situation.

“I do not want to sugar coat this for anyone out there,” said Superintendent Carlos Garcia. “The reality is when everything is said and done there will be some layoffs this year.”

In the meantime,318 teachers, 98 principals and assistant principals, 10 librarians and all other district employees who receive a layoff notice won’t know whether they’ll be back in August. Teachers with the lowest seniority are at greatest risk.

At El Dorado Elementary, 12 of the 15 teachers are within their first three years teaching in the district and likely will get a pink slip, said Principal Tai Schoeman.

“It’s devastating,” he said, adding that not all teachers want to work with at-risk students, but his do. “It’s a great place to work because everyone looks out for one another. It took me a long time to get to that place.”

District officials hope other cost-saving measures - increases in class sizes, furloughs, early retirements and cuts to salaries and benefits - will reduce the number of layoffs. Some of those efforts require union approval.

For now, the district is operating under a worst-case budget scenario, accounting for the huge number of layoff notices being sent out this week. The layoff list includes full- and part-time workers representing 800 full-time jobs. On Tuesday, parents railed against the layoffs and state funding of education.

“It’s like a crime scene,” said Crystal Brown, a parent at Sherman Elementary. “You can’t just sit back anymore.”

Are class rooms are next? With so many teachers preparing for layoffs, the obvious question is will classroom closures be next? Somehow the state of California will have to figure out whether it can afford to keep classrooms and campuses open as a further extension of cost-cutting measures. Perhaps a garage floor mat on a garage floor would suffice?

Brown, with six other PTA moms at Sherman, have organized a town hall meeting for Thursday at Marina Middle School to address school funding issues.

What started as a small gathering has ballooned into a massive meeting with 1,000 people expected, including state and local elected officials.

Also Tuesday, the board approved a name change for the School of the Arts to honor renowned artist Ruth Asawa, a key player in creation of the public arts high school in 1981.

Asawa, whose art hangs in the DeYoung Museum and has been shown in museums around the world, was dedicated to keeping art in schools despite endless cuts to programs across California in recent years.

Asawa for years resisted efforts to rename the school after her because she still considered it a work in progress without a permanent home. With her health declining, she finally consented a couple of months ago, said board member Jill Wynns, who spearheaded the renaming effort.

The school will now be called the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts.

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My Take: What’s really a bummer for California is that, just as unemployment rates hit a peak and appeared to possibly be leveling off, the beleaguered state will likely see more folks lining up for unemployment benefits as those teacher pink slips go out. There aren’t enough wickless candles in the world needed to hold up at the expected number of ‘save our schools’ vigils that are sure to arise from the pending cuts. Got a teaching certificate in the last few years? It’s worth about as much as Australian boomerangs in a hurricane. Teachers with less than five years of service would be do better to quit now and open their own Australian shop for gifts or perhaps think about a career installing wood exterior doors because they are reportedly going to be among the first to go.

If you’ve got teaching credential in California and are looking for a way through a district’s front entry door you can probably forget about it. What it’s going to take to land a teaching job in California over the next five years is either a long resume or some kind of connection.

By the way, Scentsy products, a line of wickless candles and other products would make nice gifts for those teachers of your kids who do get lay offs. They obviously won’t pay the bills, but they could provide some form of comfort for them and they last a little longer than an apple.

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