Story Created:
Jan 15, 2009 at 3:00 PM PST
Story Updated:
Mar 19, 2009 at 3:16 PM PST
LOS ANGELES — Facing a budget shortfall of up to $400 million, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education authorized its human resources staff Tuesday to send dismissal notices to as many as 2,290 nonpermanent teachers with the least seniority, but the district’s superintendent insisted that no layoffs were imminent.
“Before anyone gets a notice from this district, I will come back to the board and make a final recommendation because I am still trying to find alternatives other than doing this,” LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines told the board.
The board voted 4-2 — with Julie Korenstein and Richard Vladovic dissenting — to authorize the notices. Board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte was absent.
District officials said the LAUSD is facing a budget deficit of nearly $400 million, and that amount could grow depending on how the state budget battle is resolved in Sacramento.
“I am trying to put the pressure on Sacramento to respond not just to this district but to districts across the state,” he said.
Cortines said he does not like the idea of laying off teachers in the middle of the year, but he was running out of options.
“I am backed against the wall from the standpoint that I need this authorization from the board, and the reason I have said it’s not a final authorization — I need a little more time to see if we can encourage Sacramento to give us the flexibility,” he said. “I’m asking [United Teachers Los Angeles], I’m asking all the unions, ‘Are you with me on the flexibility?’ ... It is important because you are more important because you speak for so many.”
But UTLA President A.J. Duffy said the district needs to look at other options for slashing the budget. He said the district should cut non-educational outside contracts, eliminate the eight mini-school districts within LAUSD and stop non-federally mandated assessments and tests.
“Cut the heart out of the bureaucracy once and for all,” Duffy said.
The board action authorizes possible termination notices for as many as 1,690 elementary teachers, 300 secondary English teachers and 300 secondary math teachers.
According to a staff report presented to the board, the employees would be given the chance to work as day-to-day substitute teachers as needed. Fired probationary employees would be placed on a re-employment list for 39 months, and if teachers need to be hired at some point, people on the list with the earliest seniority date will receive the first employment offers.
But Duffy said once teachers are laid off, they will never return.
“They will never be back, ever,” he said. “They will leave the city. They will go to other districts. They will leave the state. Worse, a lot of them will leave education. And the message were sending today ... is don’t become a teacher, and if you are, don’t come to LAUSD, that’s for sure.”
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