April 22, 2005

Teachers, parents, students storm district office

Two hours of emotional testimonies

By Bea Baechle
Editor

Forget the fact that more than two-thirds of the East Side Union High School District’s pink slips will eventually be rescinded and very few teachers will actually be laid off.

Teachers taped together more than 900 psuedo pink slips to illustrate the magnitude of the layoff process.

The 200-some teachers, parents and students who marched down Capitol Avenue and stormed the ESUHSD’s April 14 board meeting needed to vent.

Dressed in black t-shirts, many with numbers draped across their chests, they chanted their way to the meeting and taped together more than 900 pseudo pink slips to demonstrate the depth of the layoff notices.

Prior to the board meeting, several teachers expressed their concerns.

“This issue tonight isn’t about their presumed $10 million loss,” said Don McKell, president of the East Side Teachers Association. “This issue tonight is about the utter incompetence of sending 940 or 960 or 788—the number changes daily—an enormous number of pink slips in response to having to potentially lay off 120 people.

“If the district’s figures of $10 million are correct,” continued McKell, “that sum represents less than 5 percent of the district’s operating budget—5 percent. So we have here a group of people that is willing to disrupt the lives of over 900 of its employees in an attempt to possibly solve a 5 percent budget problem. That’s obscene.”

McKell noted that the district’s inability to have correct data to smooth the layoff process was not former Superintendent Joe Coto’s fault. “He left here two years ago. If you were a competent CFO and HR director, and you knew at the beginning of this year that you’re going to have a hideous problem to solve, would you wait until three weeks before the layoff notices need to go out to check your records?”

He added, “There is no doubt in my mind that before the sun comes up at the beginning of our next school year, this $10 million is going to be trimmed and trimmed, and it will be very manageable without getting rid of librarians and counselors and advisors and the other people who make this district work.”

“I’m on the ESTA bargaining team and I know the overall budget is extremely large—it’s a $220 million budget—so you can’t take apart a few items and there isn’t just one solution,” said Marisa Vera, an Evergreen Valley High School math teacher.

“You’ve really got to look at the overall picture—and we’re not seeing that, and the public isn’t seeing that,” she added.

Californian’s for Justice joined the teacher-organized march.

“In a business model, one would think that if you need to make a 5 percent cut, one would take just about everything there is, and take 5 percent off it, with minimal impact across the board. That makes sense to me,” said EVHS Drama Teacher Jesse Griffin.

When asked if former Superintendent Joe Coto should be held accountable for the budget deficits facing the district today, Teacher Katrina Barbara commented, “With the exception of Lan Nguyen, every single person on that board is just as much to blame for the problems as Joe Coto, because they approved everything he did.”

Don Dawson, a math teacher at Silver Creek High School who has been in the district for 12 years, said, “The problem is, the numbers are continually changing, particularly in the last two years … I don’t have confidence in the superintendent, because I see her creating chaos, not clarity.”

He cited the large number of pink slips sent to teachers and reassigning multiple administrators with less than 24 hours notice as prime examples.

The most heart-wrenching testimonies came from students concerned about losing good teachers, one of their class periods, and competitiveness in the quest for college placement and scholarship offerings.

He noted the Quimby land sale as the most obvious solution to the deficit problem. Three hours into the board meeting, the board passed a resolution to borrow money from that land sale to resolve this year’s budget deficit.

Impassioned speeches
The opening Pledge of Allegiance set the tone when the audience yelled, “with liberty and justice for ALL.” Two hours of emotional testimony poured forth from the podium, expressing the deep anguish about the proposed budget cuts and the entire layoff process.

Many seasoned teachers spoke of the consequences of losing the best teachers who won’t stick around to see if their pink slips get rescinded. “By May, we will lose our best and brightest. It will take years to recoup these teachers,” said Dorothy Hines, a long-time ESUHSD teacher.

Jason Marshall, the popular band director at Evergreen Valley, was cited as one such example by a student who attended the meeting because she wanted the board to understand how deeply he had inspired and motivated her. Marshall accepted a job in Southern California.

(Left) Rubi Vanessa Welch, a Mt. Pleasant High School parent, shared her strong feelings about the proposed teacher layoffs.

A young science teacher with a master’s degree from Harvard said many people have told him that he could teach anywhere—in Cupertino or Palo Alto, for example. “I’m at Andrew Hill because I love these kids and they’re the ones who need my help.”

The most heart-wrenching testimonies came from students. Brittany Welch-Chenier, an elementary school student, shared her fear that pretty soon, there may not even be middle schools for her to attend. Her brother, a Mt. Pleasant High School student, expressed his concern that students will turn to drugs and gangs if funding for extra-curricular activities dries up.

Several students said that the proposal to change the school day from six periods to five will drastically hamper their ability to compete for coveted college slots compared to students who were given greater opportunities to take more classes.

In her plea to the board, one Mt. Pleasant student said, “Are you planning to strip us away from our future? They [teachers] have dedicated their lives to us working for your system and all you can say is, ‘Here’s your pink slip’ … If it wasn’t for them, you wouldn’t be up there, would you?”

David Jenkins, a parent from Independence High School, added, “We all know that most teachers are not in ‘it’ for the money. They are in ‘it’ because they care greatly and they aspire to be able to pass on great possibilities of a better tomorrow into the hearts and souls of our children. Doesn’t that matter to you? The leaders of tomorrow need the teachers of today.”