Thursday, April 15, 2010

Lay-off notices...

At last night's meeting the board approved preliminary lay-off notices for several teachers. Final lay-off notices will be distributed in May. Some of the lay-offs are associated with adjustments that happen each year, usually related to enrollment. Others are related to teachers returning from leave of absence and other factors, but several of the lay-off notices are directly due to budget cuts made by the board towards balancing the budget.

Lay-offs are based on qualifications and seniority, in general the least senior teacher from among those qualified for the position is the one laid off. This is the contract language:

Post probationary teachers shall be laid off in the reverse order of their initial employment provided the teacher with the greater seniority is qualified to perform the available teaching assignment. In determining whether the teacher with the great seniority is qualified, the Board shall take into consideration the appropriateness of training, experience and certification of such teacher with respect to the available teaching assignment.

According to Jim Orlenko the administration has not completed the evaluation of the qualifications for all the positions that will be reduced, and so in some cases the final determination of who will be laid-off has not been made.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

sad.

Monona Parent said...

How many teachers got notices?

Anonymous said...

Peter:
Can you answer this? Isn't May a little late to know whether or not you have a job for the fall? I know that for many school districts, applications to teach there were already due. So, if our teachers get laid off in May, how can they find a new job?

and


Is it true, like I read in an email, that elementary strings will be taught by a middle school/high school band teacher? With no strings experience? That would be really sad.

Anonymous said...

I also heard that band teachers will be teaching strings next year. I think if this is true, you need to inform the parents who have kids in 4th and 5th grade. Personally, I would not want to pay the rental fee of at least $20 a month for my kid to get instruction from someone who is fluent in band and not strings. This was not the plan when we saved the 4th grade string program.

Anonymous said...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, but we all saved Maywood. I wonder if people really understood-what was comin down the pike.

Anonymous said...

Not to be contrarian here, but since when did anyone get to have the teacher they wanted to teach their kid's class? Random teaching/student assignments have always been a part of schools.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but at least you knew that your random teacher was qualified to teach the class. Or you assumed so.... in this case the band folks may have no knowledge of strings whatsoever.

Anonymous said...

I have heard the experience our band teachers have with strings is one semester in college....and for the band teachers it has been a while since college. I know our band teachers are good at what they do, but should we really just assign jobs based on seniority and not what is best for our children?

Anonymous said...

I don't even have kids in strings (and the likelihood of it happening sounds even less now) and the whole thing makes me ill. Is this the way the board is getting people to sit up and take notice? (like the school district towards the state line that cut all athletics out when their referendum didn't pass...) I find this a hard pill to swallow.

Peter Sobol said...

16 preliminary Layoff notices have been issued, although 6 of the notifications are for a reduction in hours rather than a complete lay-off.

Anonymous said...

Finally! It's past the time to sart cutting the fat and waste in the system.

Now please reduce pay and benefits too! Bring them in line with our economic realities.

Bob Zimmerman said...

The times..., they are a changing...