LYNWOOD — Nearly 100 Lynwood Unified School District teachers joined Los Angeles Unified School District teachers Tuesday night in speaking out against looming layoffs at their respective school board meetings — even if Lynwood only stands to lose 119 positions compared to LAUSD’s 9,000.

The number in Lynwood might not be in the thousands, but for the teachers who recently received a copy of the proposed reductions in force of full-time employees — 119 is 119 too many.

Even though the district superintendent last summer celebrated the fact that Lynwood was one of the few school districts that wasn’t going to layoff employees for the 2008-09 school year, or shut down any of its schools, plans for the 2009-10 school year aren’t so bright.

Statewide, teachers are expected by March 15 to receive what is called a preliminary pink slip, or an advisory notice, notifying them that their positions may be eliminated for budget reasons — but according to Lynwood school board President Jose Luis Solache, the notices are not set in stone.

“The fact is, we need to make cuts in the district,” he said during an interview Wednesday afternoon. “We’re not going to know what exactly is going to be cut, or which teachers will be laid off. We won’t know that until about May. …

And with luck, that number won’t even be 119. We’re going to do everything we can to save as many positions as we can. In the end that number might be 20 teachers. We are doing the best that we can under the circumstances.”

While many teachers attend regular school board meetings, it is unusual for teachers to speak directly to the board during the public comment session of the meeting.

Oscar Luna, director of the Vista High School ROTC Program, addressed the board on Tuesday night.

A graduate of Lynwood High School, Luna told the board that ROTC saved him.

“I didn’t fit in with the jocks. College was not for me either. But if not for ROTC I wouldn’t be here right now,” Luna told the board. “Now you’re taking vocational education classes out of the district … computer classes and ROTC … where will the kids who don’t fit in go. These cuts aren’t just going to hurt the teachers, they are going to hurt our students.”

Lynwood High School senior Anthony San Martin Rodriguez was among dozens of students also in the audience speaking on behalf of the teachers and against the proposed program cuts.

He said he believed the Lynwood school district has done a good job for him in preparing him for life and credits programs like the arts and the computer classes currently being offered at the high school level.

“I can only hope … that you will do the same for my little brothers and sisters … that this school district take care of them like it did for me,” he said.

In a sign of unity Solache, along with board members Oscar Espinoza and Alfonso Morales, Tuesday contributed one month’s salary each to go back into the general fund.

Last week, the school board agreed with two of its unions to take four furlough days through June. School board members also agreed to take the same number of furlough days, along with school administrators. That agreement, however, has not been made by the Lynwood Teachers Association, because the district isn’t guaranteeing job security, union officials said.

Some blame the lack of accountability on behalf of the school board over the superintendent. Some blame the current crisis on the district’s exorbitant legal bills. According to the president of the LTA, the district is “top-heavy” with administrators, citing that the superintendent and the three assistant superintendents make between $140,000 to $200,000 a year.

Solache reminded teachers and students, and everyone who is concerned, that proposed cuts, and proposed reductions in force, are just that — proposals — and not yet finalized.

The reduction in the Computer/Technology Department is one of the cuts that is standing out the most.

Students in the audience Tuesday night held pink signs that read Save Our Teachers, but in their addresses to the board, they asked how such a large cut could even be considered.

“It’s all we have,” said one student after the meeting. “If they take away our only line to the world of technology, they are taking away our competitiveness. We use technology every single day, even every hour of our lives, and now they’re taking it away.”

The irony of it all, said teacher Jorge Ramirez, is that the superintendent last year — without the board’s approval — spent more than $3 million on computers for the elementary schools and is now eliminating the entire computer department at the secondary level?

But that’s not the case, Solache said. “There’s no way that we’re going to completely do away with all of the computer classes,” he said. “We wouldn’t allow that to happen. But we are looking at the times that we are in. What we’re looking at is moving things around, moving classes under different programs. Vocational education classes don’t have to be electives, they can be taken under [regional occupational programs] or at the community college level.”

District Superintendent Dhyan Lal said the district was under pressure from the state to improve test scores.

“The state is telling us that our kids can’t write,” Lal said. “The state is telling us ‘your district is underperforming, you better offer more writing and reading programs instead of major electives.’ … The state is telling us ‘you’re kids can’t write, you’re kids can’t read, why are you offering these other [classes]. The state wants to see a writing program.”

The district isn’t eliminating those programs altogether, it’s just moving them under different funding programs, he said.

The thing is, even the universities are saying “you’re kids come out illiterate,” Lal said. “Computers can be taken as electives, they can be taken as vocational classes, they can be taken as after-school classes. We’re not doing away with the program. It’s there, we’re just changing the funding for it.”

Teacher Linda George, a former president of the LTA, said that permanent employees cannot be laid off over new hires or part-time teachers.

“If they do that, this school district will be faced with a massive lawsuit,” she said. “A lot of the positions on this list are held by teachers like myself, who have been vocal, who speak up, or who aren’t liked by some of the superintendent’s cronies.”

According to the California Education Code 44955, “No permanent employee may be terminated under the provisions of this section while any probationary employee, or any other employees with less seniority, is retained to render a service which said permanent employee is certificated and competent to render.”

The number of probationary employees in the district, she said, vastly outnumbers the teachers in the business and vocational educational departments.

“There are new employees in this district that were brought in by the superintendent from LAUSD and from Cal State Dominguez Hills — where his wife works. That’s called cronyism. … The board needs to see that. If the teachers haven’t agreed to furlough days it isn’t because we simply don’t want to, it’s because of the actions of this superintendent.”

Patricia Wyatt, a computer applications teacher at Vista High School, doesn’t know if her job will be lost, but said that in cutting positions like hers, and eliminating programs like her vocational education computer class, they will be taking away employment skills students today need to enter the job market.

“I’ve been in this district for years and years. I have the experience,” said Wyatt. “There are teachers on special assignment that have been here less than two years, I have the right to bump those positions. … if the board does what they’re being told is right, they will be sued. What is being presented to them is a violation of the education code.

“As we speak,” Wyatt said, “this entire school district is in program improvement. To disenfranchise the students that he’s talking about disenfranchising by eliminating technology, the arts and this type of thing, that’s ludicrous … it’s taking away competitiveness away from our students … when we are already at the bottom.”

Lynwood teachers will be participating in the statewide Pink Friday rally in support of teachers Friday by wearing pink T-shirts.