Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

While House Democrats investigate clever new ways to come up with $23 billion for the edujobs bill, we see the 300,000 teacher layoffs (according to Arne Duncan) are being whittled down in school districts across the country – sometimes with the help of concessions from local teachers’ unions, sometimes without. Here are headlines and stories I’ve come across in my normal news gathering in the last few days, without even trying:

* ”Statewide, about 20,000 teachers were on layoff lists last month, said Mike Myslinski, a spokesman for the California Teachers Association. More than 26,000 teachers in California received preliminary pink slips in March, but about 6,000 of those were later rescinded, he said. As the summer progresses, more teachers could be hired back as districts finalize their staffing based on union negotiations, budget revisions, retirements and other departures.”

* “Riverside school district rescinds all but 128 layoffs”

* “Dexter schools may recall 24 teachers on lay-off notice”

* “Unit 5 to rehire half of their laid-off teachers”

* “Dist. 204 rehires 44 teachers”

* “TSC recalls 33 laid-off teachers”

*”The Millville Education Association, which represents 900 teachers, aides, secretaries and cafeteria workers, has accepted zero pay increases for next year to save more than half-million dollars. That could save as many as 15 positions that would have been cut. Originally, the district was considering eliminating 43 positions because of budget constraints, but 30 employees announced their retirements so some employees could be spared being laid off.”

* Massive layoffs halted in Brighton schools…”It looks like we’re going to exhaust our layoff list and hire five more people.”

* “The schools had faced a budget gap of roughly $9 million that would have caused about 200 layoffs, but approximately 80 jobs were restored after deferral of a 4 percent pay raise last month by the teachers union saved the schools close to $2.3 million. In addition, the mayor found $500,000 in savings in the city’s budget, thus reducing the anticipated unemployment payments.”

* “8 in 10 teachers who got notices to be asked back”

So after hyping phony numbers for months, it’s getting pretty near the time for someone to write a fallback piece about how it doesn’t matter whether it’s 300,000 teachers or 300, it’s still a tragedy. Standing by.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 at 09:37 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.