Browsing articles tagged with " Layoffs"

Jun 6, 2013

Amy Yoast

Flint School District lays off 77 employees, recalls 13 Mott Adult High School … – Mlive

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FLINT, MI – The Flint School District laid off 77 employees Wednesday, Jun 5, as it addresses a projected $9.1 million shortfall in state tyro assist since of timorous enrollment.

There are 15 non-teaching, non-clerical positions and 60 paraprofessionals were laid off since of bill reductions, according to a Flint School District.

Two additional teachers laid off as partial of a 138 layoffs a house of preparation authorized in May.

Paraprofessionals are employees who yield classroom support. Such support could embody federally saved one-on-one tutoring, assistance with classroom management, conducting primogenitor impasse activities and enlightening assistance in a mechanism lab or media center.

Interim Superintendent Larry Watkins pronounced a district is operative tough to “recruit and reclaim” students to a district.

“We’re not only going to lay behind and contend that’s a number,” he pronounced referring to a projected tyro losses.

The district has 3 years to erase a $15.6 million deficit.

Other measures a district has taken to assistance cut into a necessity include:

Closing Bryant, Dort and Washington facile schools along with Zimmerman and transitioning Flint Northern to a seventh- by 12th-grade choice school.
Looking during outsourcing or selling a district-owned Sarvis Center.
Consideration of pay-to-participate for athletics.
Cutting a utilities to all a sealed Flint School District buildings.

The building closures and staffing cuts will save a district $13.4 million, that will make adult for a $9.1 million detriment in per-student state aid. The changes also will concede a district to put $4.23 million toward the $15.6 million deficit.

Thirteen Mott Adult High School teachers were removed from layoff during Wednesday meeting.

Dominic Adams is a contributor for MLive-Flint Journal. Contact him during dadams5@mlive.com or 810-241-8803. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

May 4, 2013

Tom Reed

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Teaching jobs hard to find but not impossible – U

It’s a time for great excitement in the House of Rothgeb, because my daughter finally has achieved the goal she’s been working toward in recent years.

She has completed her master’s degree in elementary education from the University of Northern Colorado and will soon receive her teaching certificate.

She’s worked very hard for it. The whole family is very proud of her, and as soon as we let out this collective “Whew!” I’ll be ready to move on to the next phase of parent anxiety —- hoping that she finds a job.

It won’t be easy. Public school districts across the country have felt the grip of budget madness, and it’s certainly happened here in Southwest County. The uncertainty of state funding means that one day we’re hearing about layoffs and yet the next day there may be teaching positions to be filled.

So out of curiosity I talked this week with Henry Voros, assistant superintendent of human relations for the Temecula Valley Unified School District. I came away thinking that for a new teacher just starting out, the prospect of landing a job may not be a total disappointment, but it will require some work and patience.

Temecula Valley is probably not your average school district. It is consistently rated among the best in Riverside County, and teachers and administrators are clamoring to land a job there. Voros said that an assistant principal’s opening not long ago attracted 130 applications.

Jobs are hard to come by in the district, but not impossible. But the competition may be intense. I suspect that it’s the same in school districts everywhere.

“Teachers entering into the field go through all this work only to find that districts are downsizing because of budget cuts,” Voros said. “But they shouldn’t let that discourage them from applying, because they may be the one who’ll get hired.”

Temecula Valley’s projected enrollment for next year is about 28,000 students, Voros said, which is consistent with recent years. The district has about 1,300 certified personnel and the average stay for a teacher in the district is about 15 years, so there must be a lot of positives about working there.

When it comes to hiring new teachers, Voros said, the district is looking for at least two distinct characteristics. One is that the job applicant shows an intense passion for teaching and the other is they are willing to work within a team.

“In a professional learning community there is now a lot of time spent analyzing data and discussing with colleagues ways of making adjustments that will improve student performance,” Voros said. “A team approach is very important in our district.”

And if it doesn’t work out; if a greenhorn teacher doesn’t land that first job in the traditional way, they can always fall back on a position substitute teaching for a while. That practice lends itself to the old axiom, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.”

“If they are committed to the profession, substitute teachers can target certain districts to build up experience and a working relationship with the teachers and principals who work there,” Voros said. “That helps, because principals play an extremely important role in the hiring of teachers.”

So, it seems that landing a beginning teacher’s job is not really much different than landing a position in just about any profession. It just takes certain tangibles and focus to keep the drive alive.

And as a parent of a new teacher just entering the workforce, I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Other than offering encouragement, I guess that’s all I can do.

Jan 29, 2013

Tom Reed

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New city budget would cut 2500 teaching jobs

MAYOR BLOOMBERG released his $70.1 billion 2014 executive budget Tuesday, threatening to slash 2,500 teaching positions through attrition.

Hizzoner’s budget also puts 20 fire companies that have been repeatedly spared the budget ax back on the chopping block but no layoffs of city workers are planned and no tax increases are in the works.

As he announced plans to slash teachers in the city’s 1,700 public schools, he pinned the blame squarely on the teachers union for failing to reach a deal with the city on a new way to evaluate teachers.

The city already lost more than $400 million in state and federal aid this year when it failed to reach a teacher evaluation deal with the union ahead of Gov. Cuomo’s Jan. 17 deadline and could lose hundreds of millions more if the deal remains elusive for months to come.

The direct result will be the elimination of 700 teaching positions through attrition this year and another 1,800 starting in September, Bloomberg said.

No layoffs are planned.

The city was also expecting $190 million less than the $790 million originally predicted from the sale of taxi medallions. The deal to add cabs to the city’s fleet has been tied up in court because of taxi industry lawsuits.

The budget reduces “controllable” spending by 1.1% compared to the prior year while maintaining city services, Bloomberg crowed.

“The financial plan presented today continues to protect critical services and foster economic growth, while also taking the responsible, budget-minded actions that have resulted in a more efficient city government,” he said.

The city is also expecting to face $4.5 billion in Sandy-related expenses, including $1.4 billion spent on emergency response and $3.1 billion on repairs. The funds will be reimbursed by the federal government, Bloomberg said.

City Council must approve the preliminary budget before it can take effect July 1, but the task could be complicated by the 2013 elections.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a mayoral frontrunner, has vowed to fight teacher reductions and other members of Council expressed outrage at the mayor’s plans.

“This ‘my way or the highway’ stuff has got to stop,” said Councilman Lew Fiddler (D-Brooklyn). “With increases in class size and draconian cuts to after school programs, kids are paying the biggest price for this. The adults in the room need to learn the value of compromise and the mayor needs to accept the fact that father doesn’t always know best.”

Bloomberg, presenting his last preliminary budget as mayor, said the city would also cut 700,000 hours of after-school programs and would slash school aides and supplies like textbooks and pencils.

Doug Turetsky, of the city’s Independent Budget Office, said the next mayor may have to confront an even larger deficit created by expired labor contracts.

Jan 23, 2013

Tom Reed

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Richmond proposes cutting 65 teaching jobs

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RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR)—If Superintendent Dr. Yvonne Brandon’s budget proposal is passed by the School Board, then there could be hundreds of potential layoffs.

The Richmond school system faces an eleven-million shortfall. Dr. Brandon presented major changes to the School Board on Tuesday night to help close the gap.

Her suggestions would eliminate 65 teaching positions. This would be done through attrition, which means no layoffs; rather effort would be made to fill vacant positions.

In further detail, the proposal would eliminate 14 teachers from elementary schools, 10 from middle schools and 20 from high schools. The positions also include 21 instructional assistants and 4.5 clerical positions, for a total of 69.5 school positions lost.

This means that classrooms will be bigger for teachers and students. This is a move that would save the school district around three-million but would increase class size to 24 pupils per room.

Additionally Dr. Brandon proposed outsourcing for three departments; transportation, maintenance and security. It was projected that this move could save the school district $4.1 million. There are more than 500 people employed in these positions.

The total budget for the fiscal year, which begins July 1, was $246.5 million. The School Board has until February 19 to vote on the proposal.

Dec 11, 2012

Tom Reed

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Rockwood officials looking at cutting teaching positions to balance budget

Teachers and a residents’ group are balking over budget cuts proposed by the Rockwood School District to balance its budget for the 2013-2014 school year.

Those budget cuts would include elementary and high school teaching positions, although actual layoffs of tenured teachers would not come until the 2014-15 year.

District officials hope they can eliminate positions through attrition without actually laying off people, but layoffs would be necessary if not enough attrition takes place.

Chief Financial Officer Tim Rooney said planned cuts in teachers jobs include 10 being dropped due to increasing elementary school class sizes, three gifted instructors, 2.5 positions lost at Rockwood Valley Middle School (the half position is due to some full-time positions possibly being shared between two teachers or part-time staff being used), and four teaching or other positions lost at the high schools based on enrollment.

Rooney said other jobs within the district that would be cut, including a reduction in administrative staff at the district’s central office, though a final number hasn’t been determined yet. Even more posts targeted for elimination include 10 custodian, seven secretarial, two maintenance and two grounds jobs.

District officials said staffing reductions and other cuts would be unnecessary if the district decides enough community support exists to put a tax increase, and possibly a capital improvements bond issue, on a ballot next year.

That possible tax increase and bond issue are being suggested through the Picture Rockwood community engagement effort now under way.

However, some teachers are contending the district should dip into its more than $16 million in reserves before making cuts that would directly affect students. District officials contend dipping into reserves could buy some time but is not a long-term solution for financial challenges.

The district is looking at a $5.1 million budget deficit for the coming school year if there is no tax increase or revenue increase, Chief Financial Officer Tim Rooney said at a Dec. 6 board of education meeting.

The board will sit down Dec. 20 to look over that budget to see if the proposed cuts are viable.

Rooney also presented a list of proposed budget recommendations, totaling almost $10.4 million, that would provide for increases in summer school, maintenance and technology upgrades and professional development classes required to implement state-mandated “common core” academic standards that will take effect in 2014.

To fund those proposals, cuts were proposed for supplies, staffing and increasing the minimum distance for bus transportation to 1.5 miles from one-half mile.

In addition, elementary school class sizes would be increased; full-day kindergarten tuition fees would go up; class sizes in elementary gifted education would be increased at the district’s Center for Creative Learning; and the kindergarten classes would be eliminated at the Center for Creative Learning.

Rooney said the district needs even more funding for proper preventive facilities maintenance, but doing that would increase costs so much that even deeper cuts would be required, which the district is highly reluctant to make.

“Usually, when there’s a deficit, we would just try to cut expenses to get rid of the deficit,” Rooney said.

“But due to the failure of a bond issue in April of this year, we now need to include at least some of those bond issue expenses in the district’s regular operating budget,” he said.

Superintendent Bruce Borchers said any staff reductions would occur over a two-year period and that some cuts recommended in the budget proposal would be through regular resignations and retirements.

He said the district hopes to help some teachers and other staff whose posts are cut switch to other positions that open up due to attrition or by laying off some nontenured teachers working under one-year contracts.

But Rooney admitted that if there isn’t enough attrition, layoffs may be necessary in the 2014-2015 school year.

The district has not decided how many teaching and administrative positions would have to be eliminated, Rooney said.

However, for the 2013-2014 school year, any person, other than nontenured teachers, holding a position that is eliminated by the budget plan will either remain in that job or be reassigned to another position, though it may not be in the same school, Rooney said.

Rockwood has suffered from the economic downturn and decreasing local assessed valuation at the same time student transportation and employee salary and benefits costs have been going up, Rooney said.

The board isn’t expected to vote on final approval of the budget until June, but residents and teacher union representatives are expressing dismay about possible reductions.

“The cuts recommended by Dr. Borchers are a disservice to the students of Rockwood,” said Suzanne Dotta, president of the Rockwood National Education Association, which represents 1,280 teachers, almost 83 percent of those teaching in Rockwood.

“Eliminating teaching jobs, raising class sizes, and cutting secretaries and custodians to fund programs and protect excessive fund balances is not in the best interests of kids,” she said. “The use of fund balances needs to be a piece of this discussion, at least in the short term.”

Dotta also contended many of the proposed cuts are being made at the school building level and are not as great at the administrative level.

She also protested cuts targeting one-year teachers, “treating them as second-class citizens and expendable.”

Eileen Tyrrell, co-founder of the Rockwood Stakeholders for Real Solutions, a residents’ watchdog group, said she was confused that proposed budget cuts were devised without community input, while the district also is involved in a community engagement effort which hasn’t been completed.

She said she’s hearing from some residents who feel budget cuts are being threatened to encourage passage of a tax increase and possibly a bond issue.

“But residents have told me they will not support any more money until Rockwood changes its leadership to restore our trust and confidence, which have been lost due to past bad decisions that have not been acknowledged or apologized for,” Tyrrell said.

Oct 20, 2012

Tom Reed

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Why Teaching Jobs Are Finally Coming Back – Cleveland News

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — After four years of layoffs, teaching jobs are finally coming back. Public school hiring rose this summer to its highest level in six years.

Local school districts added 79,000 education jobs this July through September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the strongest summer hiring since 2006.

But even with the small hiring spurt, it’s still not nearly enough to keep up with the growing number of students in American classrooms.

“The data suggest that at least we’re not shedding a lot of teacher jobs any more. That’s a really nice first step, but there’s still so much to make up,” said Heidi Shierholz, economist with the Economic Policy Institute.

Considering public schools were slashing jobs in the four years leading up to July, the recent gains are hardly enough to bridge the gap.

Over that time period, enrollment in public schools was projected to grow by about 377,000 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

To keep up, schools would have had to hire about 62,000 workers, Shierholz estimates. Instead, they laid off about 315,000.

Recent teacher hiring comes as government budgets have started to slowly recover. Data collected from the Census Bureau shows local and state tax revenues have been gradually increasing since mid 2010.

Property taxes — one of the largest sources of funding for public school districts — were much slower to recover, but as of the second quarter of 2012, they were up about 6% from a year earlier.

“You’re beginning to see a recovery in state and local hiring because tax revenues have been positive,” said Brett Ryan, an economist with Deutsche Bank. “This is another overall sign that the economy continues to recover.”

But many experts fear that this new wave of hiring — which has included mostly teachers, but also librarians, guidance counselors, administrators and janitors — could come to a sudden end.

Whether school districts will continue to hire is up in the air, depending on the election and how lawmakers act to avoid massive spending cuts set to take effect in 2013.

If the so-called fiscal cliff is allowed to happen, federal education cuts are expected to near $4 billion, rolling back education funding to pre-2003 levels and cutting about 75,000 jobs, according to the National Education Association, the largest labor union representing teachers.

“States and locals are still teetering on this fragile stability,” said Noelle Ellerson, assistant director of policy analysis and advocacy at the American Association of School Administrators. “Are they at the bottom of a valley or teetering on a fiscal cliff? Are things going to pick up or is this just a false sense of stability, before a deeper downward slide?”

President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney sparred over education funding in their debate last week, with Obama suggesting that Romney would cut the Department of Education’s budget by as much as 20%. But Obama admitted that number is extrapolated from Paul Ryan’s budget plan calling for broad spending cuts.

“We’ve seen layoffs of hundreds of thousands of teachers over the last several years, and Governor Romney doesn’t think we need more teachers,” Obama said. “I do, because I think that is the kind of investment where the federal government can help.”

Romney responded, saying the primary responsibility for education lies on state and local governments, but he does favor some federal support.

“I reject the idea that I don’t believe in great teachers or more teachers. Every school district, every state should make that decision on their own,” Romney said.

“I’m not going to cut education funding,” he added later.

Oct 11, 2012

Tom Reed

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Teaching jobs finally coming back

After four years of job cuts, public school districts started to hire teachers and other workers this summer.