Teacher, government layoffs could pull $12.7M from economy
Kristen Strife, a fourth-grade teacher at Kernan Elementary School, knows she was lucky to get a job last year.
She also knows it’s a real possibility she could lose it this year.
She’s about 15th from the bottom on the seniority list, and anywhere from 70 to 150 teaching jobs could be cut in the Utica school district.
If the 23-year-old Strife loses her job, her $35,000-plus salary will disappear from the local economy.
Between the county budget and proposed city and school budgets, approximately $12.7 million in payroll for 238 local jobs could be cut – and therefore won’t be spent in the area’s grocery stores, car dealerships or a hundred other types of businesses in the Mohawk Valley. That’s not counting job cuts in suburban and rural villages, towns and school districts.
What kind of impact will that much money being pulled out of the area have? Experts say the cuts will hurt, but could be made up because of growth in other sectors.
“One of the basic concepts in economics is called the multiplier effect,” said Arthur Friedberg, an economics professor at Mohawk Valley Community College.
Every $1 spent locally gets multiplied two to two-and-a-half times in the local economy, he said. The opposite is true, too, inflating that $12.7 million to $25.4 million less being spent locally.
Unemployment benefits minimize that impact, but only so much.
“Anytime there’s a loss of people and a reduction of income, somewhere it’s going to be felt,” he said. “It’s not going to be evident in any one company or store, but less people shopping in Walmart, less people picking up a pizza.”
For Strife, it’s more than pizza. She’s engaged, and believes if she loses her job, those wedding bells might be farther away. So, too, is the purchase of a house with her future husband.
The young middle class, the demographic often accused of leaving the Mohawk Valley for greener pastures, is feeling the pain.
That’s a good and bad, Friedberg said.
“That younger person would be able to accept a job that is lower paying,” he said, and more likely to find another job or be retrained.
Older, married workers, however, can lean on their savings and spouses’ income, but they have more obligations, such as mortgage payments, he said.
Nate Kelley, an associate economist at Moody Analytics, said big cuts and the $66 million the city of Utica owes in long-term debt could drag on the economy of Oneida and Herkimer counties, which his organization values at $14 billion a year.
“(The cuts coming now are) not as bad as it could have been two to three years ago,” Kelley said.
In fact, some sectors are growing and will offset the school and government cuts.
“It looks like business and professional services and finance has come back, manufacturing is relative strong,” Kelley said. “While it seems like this is a dark patch, it does seem that the recovery in Utica is showing some signs of life.”
Teacher Network newsletter: cute kittens to count
Dear colleague
Some absolutely cracking resources have been put up on the Guardian Teacher Network this week, so many thanks to those of you who have been so active in sharing your work. We’ve got a selection of some of the best below – please do have a look and pass on to colleagues if you think they might help them.
And if you haven’t browsed the resources for a while, it might be worth a fresh look. The library is now 50 per cent larger than it was this time last year when we launched – thanks to sharing of resources by teachers and other educators. We are also working hard to improve the ease with which you can find new resources, so you may find some gems you never knew were there.
New teaching resources on the network
Use dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs to bring maths problems to life for pupils aged 8-11 with Animal Accounting – from Wood Green Pet Shelter. Or for those with Jacqueline Wilson fans in their class we have these great reading notes on The Worst Thing About My Sister.
We are in raptures about the book Wonder by RJ Palacio which was released on Thursday – it is the touching tale of a boy with a severe facial disfigurement and is touted as being as big as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Download some reading notes for it here.
Continuing our literary theme another great resource new on the site is this Happy Families game to use while reading James Joyce’s classic The Dubliners.
Primary
Red hot rocks – build a volcano
Little Red Riding Hood story map
Secondary
Learning about the Leveson Inquiry
On your marks, get, set, breathe
Electromagnetic waves (with mobile phone experiment)
Medicines in the ancient world
Blog of the week
Chat on twitter and the blog were alive on Saturday with Mike Matthew’s blog about the threat to school staff rooms – please take a look and add your comments.
Looking to change jobs or got a vacancy to fill?
Job hunting season is upon us and we have more than 1,900 jobs available at the moment schoolsjobs.guardian.co.uk – simply sign up for an email alert and get vacancies in your area delivered straight to your inbox.
If you need staff – teaching or non-teaching – then get in touch with Schools Jobs and we will run your first advert for FREE! Call 020 3353 2010 so that you can test the great response of this new low cost service for schools.
Seminars coming up
There are just a few spaces left for behaviour guru Paul Dix’s masterclass at The Guardian headquarters in London on Wednesday. Paul is a warm, funny and very effective speaker. More details on the class here Transforming Classroom Behaviour. There’s a 20 per cent discount for GTN members and participants will all receive an invaluable resource pack to take back to school to share with colleagues.
Space for our April 6 session – Working with the Press – is also filling up. If you come, you’ll be learning how to handle the press from Guardian journalists and social media experts – whether it is sharing good news or handling a crisis. To book a place click here.
And finally…
Congratulations to Francoise Rigby from Lincolnshire who is the lucky winner of our iPad competition.
And on Tuesday, Education Guardian’s How to teach… article will be showcasing some amazing art resources on the GTN from Face Britain. The resources can be used in class as part of a massive art project to help celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. For a preview, search for Face Britain on teachers.guardian.co.uk.
Wishing you a wonderful week,
Wendy Berliner
Head of Education, Business and Professional
Guardian News and Media
If you want to sign up to this weekly newsletter you need to register on the Guardian Teacher Network.
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Wendy Berliner
Head of Education, Business and Professional
Guardian News and Media
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Trade union criticises Anglesey teaching jobs cut
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Ministers to cut paperwork for teachers
People in teaching jobs should not have to spend their own time completing unnecessary paperwork, the schools minister Nick Gibb has said.
Speaking to MPs in the House of Commons, Mr Gibb said that the Department for Education had cut down the amount of pages of guidance it issues to teachers in a bid to combat the problem.
Therese Coffey, a Conservative MP, had initially complained to Mr Gibb that teachers were issued with manuals that were like “reading War and Peace three times over”.
Responding, the schools minister joked that the guidance was “significantly less interesting” than Tolstoy’s epic Russian novel, before revealing that hundreds of pages had been slashed from the instructions.
He added that teachers were not expected by education watchdog Ofsted to write up plans for each individual lesson.
Pages detailing how best to carry out a headcount and how to maintain a school minibus have been binned, while guidance on assessing children has been reduced from 160 pages to 50 and health and safety advice cut from 150 page to just eight.
However, Mr Gibb acknowledged that teachers were spending too much time filling out paperwork during unpaid overtime and this was something that needed to stop.
“I am aware that many teachers are doing enormous amounts of overtime and that is a tribute to the professionalism of teachers in our schools today,” he told MPs.
“What is important is that overtime is not spent filling in voluminous forms or reading huge lever arch files of guidance.”
Meanwhile, the Welsh minister for education and skills, Leighton Andrews, has announced that the qualifications market in Wales is to be subject to a structural review.
Due to be completed by May, the review will assess the structure of GCSEs and A Levels and consider the effectiveness of a market structure on standards.
“This review will assess how well the current system is working and whether this is having an impact on standards,” he said.
Posted by Theo Foulds
Published On 29/02/2012
Greenfield Union School District looks at slashing teacher jobs
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) — Greenfield Union School District might be forced to cut almost a quarter of its staff, including teachers, as it tries to cope with a $3.2 billion state budget cut.
Nearly 60 teachers and 15 assistant principals face getting a pink slip in the next coming weeks. By the 2012-13 school year, Greenfield will have to make $4.8 million in cuts. Those cuts could come from eliminating 35 elementary teaching jobs and 24 single subject jobs, including math, English, music and art.
“If we laid off all that many people, the number, itself would be huge. We can’t, but we also don’t have an unlimited reserve and can’t go forward without doing anything,” Greenfield Superintendent Chris Crawford said.
Eyewitness News received a tip from a teacher working with the district. She said she is concerned that money is being wasted by administrators using district-funded cellphones and getting car allowances. We asked the superintendent why those areas haven’t been cut.
“We are looking at things like cellphones, but that’s a small number. The cellphone savings alone would be less than $5,000 a year,” Crawford said.
Crawford said he hopes teachers and administrators will take advantage of retirement incentives offered to teachers that could help save jobs. School districts throughout the state, including Kern County, must make the layoff decisions by March 15.
Utica school district to offer retirement incentives
Utica’s Board of Education Tuesday approved a retirement incentive for 25 teachers and four administrators that officials say should prevent some teacher layoffs and will save the district more than $200,000 in administrators’ costs alone.
“There’s a few of them that we will have to replace because they’re mandated,” Superintendent Bruce Karam said. “For the most part we’ll be able to use the majority of retirements to offset the cuts.”
Each teacher will receive $14,000 for retiring by June 30; each administrator will receive $25,000 for leaving by Aug. 1.
The district is projecting a $10 million deficit for the 2012-13 school year, and Karam has proposed a 2 percent tax increase and 223 layoffs, 150 of which are teaching positions.
A number of factors could influence those numbers, most importantly the $2.8 million state-aid increase that is dependent on the district and the Utica Teachers Union agreeing on the Annual Professional Performance Review process.
If they settle on a system by April, Karam said he would budget that money in and save 45 teaching jobs. Another 35 jobs hinge on the union agreeing to wage concessions.
Karam couldn’t say how much money the retiring teachers accounted for in salary and benefits.
According to an O-D database of Utica School District salaries for 2010-2011, the four administrators who are being offered the incentive earn more than $440,000 in salary and benefits. They are: Dolores Chainey, John F. Kennedy Middle School’s principal; Richard Ambruso, the district’s human resources director; Carmela Brown, administrator for fine arts; and Mary Ellen Fitzgerald, chairwoman of one of the district’s three Committees on Special Education
“We’re going to have tremendous savings here,” Karam said.
The board also approved Karam’s plan to abolish Brown’s position, saving the district her $140,000 salary. As for the other three positions, Karam said he would hire people at a lower pay rate.
As for teachers, he said five or six positions might have to be filled because the positions are mandated or there is a high need in that subject area. The rest of the positions will offset cuts to teachers who still want to teach.
“I want that, to not lay off 20 people,” he said.
Last year, approximately 25 teaching jobs were cut through a similar incentive. Karam said he told the union an incentive would not be offered this year to ensure enough people stepped up to take it.
“This was a one-time offer this year,” he said. “When the deadline passed, the deadline passed.”
Larry Custodero, president of the teachers’ union, said he felt that after this year’s group there might not be enough teachers who have enough time on the job to take the incentive.
“Eighty percent (of teachers) are people who were hired in 1999 up until now,” he said. “I’ll bet you 600 teachers have 15 or fewer years in.”
Gausman’s budget proposals cut teaching jobs, money
Superintendent Paul Gausman has approached the school board with four proposals to balance the district’s budget next year.
Each scenario cuts jobs and programs.
The first proposal cuts eleven teaching positions, and $2.3 million. The fourth would mean 23 teaching jobs would be lost, and cuts of $4.2 million.
It’s the first time board members saw the Gausman’s proposal.
They’ll have many discussions before it’s certified on April 16th.
Teacher Network newsletter: The Oscars and leadership interviews
I’m writing this on the hottest day of the year so far. It’s been 17 degrees in London with people eating their lunch outside on the bank of the Regent’s Canal which borders GTN headquarters at The Guardian. Yet last week there was still snow on the ground!
But come rain, or snow, or shine, the team here works hard to bring you new resources and good practice blogs that will help you in the classroom and new jobs to browse every week.
We are always looking at ways to improve the site and if you have any great suggestions then please don’t hesitate to get in touch. This week we are on the hunt for maths resources – so if you have any that have really worked for you, please do upload them onto the site and we can give them a mention in the newsletter next week.
New teaching resources on the network
If your pupils are feeling a bit worn down by the prospect of revision and exams then here is the perfect pick me up – a beautiful presentation with some top revision tips and lots of words of inspiration – revision skills.
Tonight is Oscars Night (our money is on The Artist for Best Picture) but if you want to bring a bit of the Oscars to your class then we have some great resources from Film Club UK.
This is a resource featuring some classics that never quite won Oscars: Unrecognised classics.
While this resource offers a guide to films that offer a peek into the world of film-making and the nature of films: Films about films.
Primary
Secondary
In the Sea there are Crocodiles
Blog of the week
One headteacher we talked to this week said taking the step into senior leadership was often harder than getting a headship. This week’s blog by assistant head Ross McGill laid out his varied (and often harrowing) experiences of leadership interviews… have a read here and please do add your own experiences to the mix.
We had more than 50 comments on our blog about the shortage of money there is to spend on Religious Education classes – less than £1 per pupil in England – a really good debate read it here.
If you love writing and fancy having a go at blogging (or already do) and would like your work to be considered for the Guardian Teacher Network, then email blog curator Emma Drury emma.drury@guardian.co.uk and give her a brief summary of your ideas.
Looking to change jobs or got a vacancy to fill?
Heads and senior leaders – are you looking to place an advert for staff? Then get in touch with Schools Jobs and we will run your first advert for FREE! Call 020 3353 2010 so that you can test the great response of this new low cost service for schools.
And if you are looking for a job don’t forget we have more than 1,800 jobs available on the Schools Jobs site at the moment – sign up for an email alert and get vacancies in your area delivered straight to your inbox.
Seminars coming up
The Guardian Education Centre has a few remaining spots available in the summer term for their new features writing workshop for English Language A level students. For more information please visit the workshop webpage. You can also see a gallery of pictures from the most recent workshop here. If you are interested in booking a workshop, please contact educationcentre@guardian.co.uk.
And finally… next week sees the start of a new partnership on the Guardian Teacher Network with the ever popular Comment is Free section of The Guardian. We’ll be jointly offering you up some blogs about education that will really get everyone talking – the first one is on Thursday so keep an eye open for it.
Have a fantastic week,
Wendy Berliner
Head of Education, Business and Professional
Guardian News and Media
If you want to sign up to this weekly newsletter you need to register on the Guardian Teacher Network.
• Follow us on Twitter @guardianteach
• Check us out on Facebook
• See our Teaching Jobs app
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Georgia teachers vie for top-paying overseas jobs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Stephanie Taplin drove more than 200 miles this weekend to Atlanta for a chance to fulfill a few items on her bucket list.
Tammy Joyner, Tjoyner@ajc.com
Kelly Karges (left) a placement coordinator with Teach Away, a global teacher recruiting company chats Saturday with John Richardson, a 7th grade teacher at Paul D. West Middle School in southwest Fulton County, who is interested in working in Abu Dhabi.
The Savannah educator was among nearly four dozen people Saturday vying for some 600 teaching positions in the opulent Middle Eastern oasis of Abu Dhabi.
“I’m looking forward to the experience,” said Taplin, who taught middle school language arts for six years at Pembroke and served as a school administrator . She’s now working on a master’s in mental health counseling and said teaching abroad would enable her to finish her degree.
“This would give me an opportunity to do some more traveling and learn other cultures and realize other goals,” Taplin said.
The pay and free housing isn’t bad either.
Teachers working abroad in the Teach Away program are given two-year contracts and earn between $3,300 and $5,500 a month in tax-free U.S. dollars. They also receive a completion bonus equal to one month’s salary per year, said Kelly Kargas , placement coordinator with Teach Away, a Toronto-based education recruitment and placement firm. There’s also free yearly airline tickets and generous health benefits.
That’s a huge incentive for teaching veterans like Charlene Sams and Andrea Brown of Marietta. Sams had 22 years of teaching experience when she was laid off from the Gwinnett school system in May 2010. She said the economic downturn has made it seemingly impossible for her to find a teaching job here.
Friends who work in Dubai have constantly beckoned her to come abroad. She showed up Saturday at the Marriott in downtown Atlanta for that chance.
“I just want to broaden my horizon,” said Sams, who is also a playwright.
“(The economy has) rebounded a little but it’s still difficult to find what you want,” said Brown, a teacher with 14 years of experience in pre-K and kindergarten. “There’s added pressure to do more things and there’s less time to do it.”
In the past year, more than 20,000 U.S. teachers and administrators have applied for overseas jobs through Teach Away. Countries seeking U.S. teachers include South Korea, Egypt and South America.
The poor U.S. economy and the United Arab Emirate’s need for English-speaking teachers to advance education reforms have boosted interest in overseas teaching jobs, said Ron Stalenberg, with the Abu Dhabi Education Council. The government is also looking for English-speaking principals, advisors and other education professionals. .
Metro Atlanta is the first stop in a multi-city,state and country recruiting swing that ends in March in Dublin, Ireland.
“The quality we’ve seen so far has been good,” Stalenberg said of the group’s Atlanta stop, it’s fifth year recruiting in the city.
While Abu Dhabi has pristine beaches and is a shopaholic’s paradise, it has its drawbacks, including triple-digit sweltering heat. Women aren’t required to wear burkas or other traditional Islamic garments but they are expected to wear long skirts and long-sleeved blouses in the classroom and dress conservatively while in the community, Karges said.
“You’re going to have culture shock wherever you go,” she said.”It’s a pretty progressive place and they’re pretty open-minded.”
SAD 1 plans to cut six teaching jobs to account for loss of funding
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — SAD 1 officials are proposing eliminating six teaching positions as part of a cost-saving plan to address an estimated loss of $639,639 in state aid and a projected decrease of $221,833 in federal funds for the next school year.
“We’re in a financial crisis again for the third year in a row and it’s directly connected to the loss of revenue coming in from the state,” Superintendent Gehrig Johnson told school board directors during their Feb. 15 meeting. “This $640,000 loss is the fourth-biggest hit — dollarwise — of any of Maine’s 132 school systems. The large loss in state aid is directly tied to Presque Isle and Mapleton’s much higher state average valuation growth, combined with an 86 student loss districtwide.”
As of Oct. 1, there were 1,878 students attending SAD 1 schools.
Having looked closely at the budget, Johnson said it was “evident to us that a tax increase isn’t the answer with the economy being what it is.”
“We set as a goal to work with what we have and to examine our budget to develop a plan that is educationally sound and also makes financial sense,” he said. “In order to keep the tax commitment the same as this year, we have to cut our budget by approximately $936,000.
“We will be presenting a budget with significant reductions in it … touching every department and every budget category throughout the system. We know that our budget is 80 percent personnel, and unfortunately with a reduction of this size, it has to affect people,” said Johnson.
In 2010-11 — facing a similar budget crisis — $540,000 in personnel cuts representing 28 positions were made, but with careful planning, retirement incentives and normal personnel turnover, no one lost a job. In 2011-12, seven more positions were eliminated.
Johnson said at last week’s meeting that the proposed 2012-13 budget will reflect a loss of six teaching jobs.
Eliminated positions include one first-grade teacher at Pine Street Elementary School, two second-grade teachers at Pine, one fourth-grade position at Zippel, one fourth-grade teacher at Mapleton Elementary School and the family consumer science position at Presque Isle High School.
“Decreased enrollment will allow for these reductions,” said Johnson, “but we will still be within guidelines that have been established by the board.”
In addition, two special education ed techs will be eliminated, and three bus driver and custodian positions that have yet to be filled will remain vacant.
Further, seven co-curricular and extracurricular stipend positions at Presque Isle Middle School and PIHS will be eliminated, and the adult education and vocational education directorship and school farm manager positions will be restructured in a manner that will result in an approximately $63,000 savings in administrative costs.
“On the personnel side, we’re looking at a total savings of $540,257,” Johnson said.
Other savings include contracted maintenance services and supplies, and contingencies for supplies, fuel oil and electricity.
The proposed 2012-13 budget that will be presented to directors in the coming weeks will reflect no tax increase districtwide, but some communities may see a slight increase or decrease depending on their valuation increases.
“The proposed budget will reflect the same budget figure that we worked with this year — $22,960,050 — and the same tax commitment figures that we used this year, as well,” Johnson said.
Though not at all pleased with the large losses in state aid, Johnson feels the budget proposal is workable.
“The last few years we’ve tried very hard to stay away from any reductions at the elementary level, while reductions were made at other levels,” he said, “but with elementary enrollment continuing to decline, positions there will now also be affected.”
Budget workshops will be held in April, and the budget referendum is expected to go to voters in May.