Ax Falls on L.A. Unified School District
Months of talk of heavy staff cuts at L.A. Unified came to fruition this week, with over 6,000 layoffs now planned and larger class sizes planned as cost-cutting measures.
From the Los Angeles Times's account of the contentious L.A. Board of Education meeting on Tuesday:
The board action affects about 3,500 newer teachers who have yet to earn tenure protections as well as administrators, nursing staff, library aides, computer programmers and others.The teachers will lose positions as a result of larger classes, which could rise from 20 to 24 students in the early grades. Sixth-grade classes would rise to 35 students. The average high school class would be larger still. ....Supt. Ramon C. Cortines has decided to spread the federal [stimulus] money over the next two budget years. Even with the cuts, the district faces an additional deficit in 2010-11. Using most of the federal money now, Cortines said, would create an untenable funding cliff when the dollars ran out...... Those still at risk include all teachers without tenure: 1,605 at the elementary level and 1,872 at middle and high schools. The notices also went to 498 other employees with teaching credentials and to 2,875 administrators. Most of those administrators will keep their jobs, but some small campuses will lose a full-time principal.
Many optimistic local political figures and parents assume that the USD should just plunge full speed ahead and that things will work out somehow; the Daily News quotes Teachers Union leader A.J. Duffy saying "We know they're going to find more money." The L.A. Weekly's blog quotes former school boarder Jackie Goldberg calling on the current board to be "audacious" and "irresponsible" and reject job cuts as an austerity measure.
Joseph Mailander at local news and commentary blog Street Hassle, seemingly annoyed that Cortines backed down on 2,000 previously announced possible layoffs of elementary school teachers, condemns him for lacking courage in the attempt to manage the USD's nearly $600 million budget deficit.
Earlier City of Angles blogging on L.A. USD layoff plans and on how much it can benefit from federal stimulus money.
(Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
