LYNWOOD — At a special meeting Tuesday, Lynwood school board members voted unanimously to rescind 43 positions of the 119 possible layoff notices given to employees last month.

The action came after heavy opposition to the layoffs by parents, teachers, students and by board members themselves.

The number may not be at zero, school board Vice President Alfonso Morales said, but Tuesday night was a “day for celebration.”

“The board’s will was seen through,” Morales said. “Based on the board’s actions, 43 notices will be rescinded and mailed out this week.”

The resolution to modify the 119 originally approved by the board last month, remains a “living, moving document” and can still be changed, Morales said, adding that he will continue to ask staff to look at more ways to save more jobs.

But Lynwood Teachers Association President Val Zolfaghari wasn’t happy that 43 jobs were saved because five of the 43 are assistant principals, not teachers.

Zolfaghari noted that the school district initially sent out intention of dismissal letters to 119 reduction in force letters, 31 to non-re-elect letters and 19 non-re-elect letters to long-term substitutes. In addition, Zolfaghari said, 10 people in the district opted to retire.

Add up those numbers, the LTA president said, and it results in “191 positions being lost altogether.”

“The [number is] not sufficient,” he said. “It isn’t 43 rescinded teacher positions in the classroom, it’s really 37, and if the numbers and positions are looked at carefully, the district — is still eliminating 154 positions.”

Aside from the five assistant principal pink slips being rescinded, are 20 teachers who participated in a seniority list lottery that took place right before spring break. Eighteen others will also receive rescind letters in the mail this week.

Even though several members of the LTA maintain they were not notified of the tie-breaking lottery in a timely manner, the school district released an informational bulletin in response to misinformation it claims was quoted in The Wave by union officials last week. The district bulletin said that LTA officials knew of the April 7 lottery and knew exactly how many teachers were being asked to participate.

In the April 16 edition of The Wave, there were “several erroneous statements attributed to LTA union officials with regard to teacher layoffs,” the district bulletin said. “The district has issued this [bulletin] to correct misinformation that has recently been provided by the LTA to the press.”

The most important point the school district wanted clarified is that no non-tenured teachers took part in the lottery.

The bulletin outlined six different “myths” district officials found in The Wave story regarding the lottery and claims that several statements by LTA members were false.

In regards to the lottery, the bulletin said that as far back as March 2, the district adopted the tie-breaking criteria, and that the LTA was given a copy of the tie-breaking resolution. “LTA never raised questions regarding how the tie-breaking criteria would be implemented,” the bulletin stated.

“On March 26th, the district invited LTA to jointly participate and/or witness the lottery on March 30th, to break these seniority ties. On the morning of March 30th, LTA informed the district that it refused to participate or attend the lottery,” the bulletin said.

The lottery, the bulletin added, was conducted in a “fair and impartial manner,” contrary to what was quoted in the newspaper. The bulletin also contests that the district had published an inaccurate seniority list.

“The district’s seniority list is a comprehensive document that is produced from the County Office of Education’s personnel database,” the bulletin read. “The district has always been open to correcting the seniority list when warranted, and [has] invited LTA to collaborate with the district to make the list as accurate as possible. For the most part, LTA has refused to cooperate with the district.”

Zolfaghari, who called the district’s four-page bulletin “four pages of garbage and proof that the district is panicking,” said it is unfair for the district to ask teachers to cooperate with administrators who clearly do not believe in transparency.

“How can you cooperate with someone who doesn’t believe in accountability,” Zolfaghari said. “How can you do that with someone who doesn’t believe in ethics reform? Even with granting 43 rescissions, to me it still appears to be a game of secrets the district is playing, because despite the rescinds, 60 elementary school teachers remain pink-slipped. We would love to cooperate, but there is no honesty on the district’s behalf, and there’s no trust.”

According to Morales, Zolfaghari is “manipulating the numbers.”

“He is manipulating the numbers and the actual number of reduction of staff will be 96, that’s what has been given to us, that’s what’s been approved. When you start calculating non-[tenured teachers] those are teachers that site administrators chose not to hire for whatever reason, and we go ahead and approve those based on their recommendations. Those have nothing to do with the [proposed] layoffs.”

What the board has been talking about and what the board has been dealing with, Morales said, “are specifically the layoffs being caused by the financial strain, and those layoffs have been reduced in a significant number based on the work of the administration and that should be commended.

“And this environment that is being created by the manipulation of the numbers by [Zolfaghari] is not acceptable.”

There is a real “unhealthy environment being created in the district” when people are being “antagonistic,” Morales added. “And that is not appreciated by myself as a board member and as a community member.”

Tuesday’s vote to modify the original 119 layoff notices, also resulted in reinstating several programs jeopardized by the cuts, including several vocational programs such as computers and business, photography and graphic arts, and the cadet corps instruction program.

While the number of elementary school instruction proposed layoffs still includes 60 positions, rescinded were: one position in the secondary physical education instruction program; three in the secondary foreign language Spanish instruction program; two in secondary business/computers program; five in the secondary vocational education business/computer program; one in the secondary vocational educational photography/graphic arts program; two secondary counselors; three elementary school assistant principals; two secondary assistant principals; two cadet corps. instructors; one position in the home economics instruction program and three psychologists — for a total of 23 positions at the school site level.

The cuts are still going to affect the classrooms, Zolfaghari said.

“You can’t count the principals on this list,” he said. And at the same time, the district is saving 20 other positions that aren’t in the classroom, and still “there are no attempts to cut at the top,” where the cuts should begin, the LTA president said.

One teacher, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by the district, said the board and district administrators are making a huge mistake in approving all of these cuts.

“This district is in a district improvement program,” she said. “Cutting 60 elementary school teachers is a scary thing by itself. How can we improve as a district if the top people are cutting the people in the classrooms, the ones dealing with the children. If you cut 60 people, what is the new ratio in the classroom going to be — it sounds like it’s going to be 40 [students] to 1 [teacher]. Not only will that be hard on teachers, but it’s going to affect our students and their success in school.”

The teacher said she didn’t get a pink slip, but is still concerned for her colleagues. She said she read the district’s bulletin regarding the story in The Wave.

“The district knows where it did teachers wrong,” she said. “The school district is trying to blame the Lynwood Teachers Association for everything wrong that the district did. They say that the union didn’t do this, that the union didn’t cooperate, that the union this and that, when it’s not the union’s job to fix their mistakes, to do their work for them.”

If the district had obtained its seniority list from the county, like the bulletin states, then “it would have been accurate in the first place,” the teacher said.

“But there were disparities all over the place. That list included permanent teachers over probationary teachers. It was wrong, and the district knows it,” she said. “That list was not valid from the beginning, so that is why it was illegal for [the district] to hold a lottery.”

Morales said the whole lottery thing was an inner-working of the district that he was not completely familiar with, and wasn’t a part of. The only thing he could comment on is that the lottery was held as a tie-breaker among individuals on the seniority list. Still, in the end, he said he hopes that Tuesday’s vote eliminated any conflicts people had with the lottery and that as a board member he will continue to insist that the numbers be brought down further.

School board President Jose Solache said he is happy that the district found ways to save its vocational programs.

“These are classes that are essential for our students,” he said. “[The board] knew that from the beginning, but at the end of the day, we’re just the policy makers. After that, it was clear what the board didn’t want cut and staff came through for us.”

The school board and district administrators are still looking at all of the positions, and all of the funds available, said Solache to try and save more positions and despite what some people may say about the board, “we are doing our best.”

The district is also hoping that President Barack Obama’s stimulus package is good to school districts. Unless those funds come with restrictions, it is certain that those funds can be used to reduce the number of layoffs as well, Solache said.

Teachers who did not receive rescind letters are still expected to attend the layoff hearing Friday. In the bulletin, the district wants to clarify that there won’t be 90 teachers absent from the classroom on Friday since 43 rescind letters would be reducing that number.