Yesterday Superintendent Carlos Garcia officially announced the number of layoff notices that he intends to send out to certificated staff in the district. With Board of Education approval, he will send notices out to approximately 362 teachers and 144 administrators.
The Board of Education will meet tonight to officially approve the sending of the layoff notices. According to the superintendent, these notices will be hand delivered starting Monday, March 9th. Most likely this will happen by principals at school sites.
The anger and frustration that is generated by these layoff notices should be directed squarely at the Governor, and the state legislature. Because of their failure to enact a responsible education budget, SFUSD is facing a $29 million budget shortfall next school year.
Five city Supervisors attended the superintendent's press conference yesterday, all indicating their support for SFUSD to draw from the San Francisco Rainy Day Fund. However, at most the district will be eligible to draw $24 million, leaving at least a $5 million deficit. I have spoken repeatedly about the need to make any cuts as far away from the classroom as possible, and will continue to do so.
This includes protecting the jobs of all paraprofessionals as well. So far, we have heard no mention from the district as to what their intentions are with para layoffs. By law, district officials must send para layoff notices 45 days before the end of the school year.
Finally, layoff notices must be received by teachers no later than March 15th. In order to rescind those notices, the district must notify teachers by May 15th. Unfortunately, the official disbursement of the Rainy Day Fund does not take place until after the city budget process, which starts in June.
With Mayor Newsom taking the lead, last year the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in May committing the city to providing the funds to the school district. It is our hope that the city will once again commit those funds early this year, in order to save the hundreds of teacher and para jobs at stake.
With the layoff process begun, the mayor will hold a press conference today to indicate his support and the Board of Supervisors is expected to consider a resolution at their 2:00 p.m. meeting today. Until the funds are fully committed, we will continue to make our case to them that our schools need their leadership and their support.
p.s. The dean got shat on today. Touchdown!
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