53 teachers get lay-off notice

Coral Wilson

The fears of many teachers in the Huntington Beach City School

District became a reality this week, when 45 teachers received

lay-off notices.

While notified teachers may not have to back their bags come June,

Saturday is the deadline for school officials to send out “reduction

of force” notices, a necessary step in the lay-off process. Final

decisions will be made in May.

Gary Joyce, a fourth-grade teacher at Joseph R. Perry Elementary

School, said about nine teachers he works with stand to lose their

jobs. Joyce did not receive one of the dreaded pink slips, but said

if another wave comes through it could be him.

Some of his colleagues will have large grants and loans to pay off

if they lose their jobs and don’t complete a third year of teaching,

Joyce said.

“It seems kind of odd that in a community the size of Huntington

Beach, $3 million for all the education that goes on here is hard to

come up with,” Joyce said. “I understand that it is the way education

is funded, but I think there is a fundamental flaw there.”

The Ocean View School District is not planning on laying off any

teachers, said Mary Lou Beckmann, chief financial officer for the

district.

“We had some reserves that are definitely helping us, right now,

cope with the uncertainty,” Beckmann said.

The Huntington Beach Union High School District School Board met

Tuesday night to discuss lay-offs and will be sending notices to

eight teachers by the Saturday deadline, said Kathy Miller, Assistant

Superintendent of personnel.

City school district trustees approved more than $2.2 million in

cuts to the 2003-04 budget. Cuts included eliminating 34 full-time

kindergarten through fifth-grade classroom teacher positions and four

teacher on special assignment positions, said Kathy Kessler,

assistant superintendent of human resources.

About 30 notices were sent out to tenured and probationary

teachers and 15 temporary teachers were notified, Kessler said. A

full-time position could be assumed by more than one temporary

teacher.

In addition, about 12 full-time and part-time non-teaching

positions, including clerical, maintenance, custodial and delivery

driver positions, have been eliminated, Kessler said. Two full-time

positions will become part-time positions and other employees will

have half an hour to four hours cut from their work hours per day.

Other cuts could include cutting the work year by a full day, she

said.

District officials and the teacher’s association held a meeting

Monday to explain the lay-off process, give time lines and offer

recommendations.

“This is a difficult time for everyone in the district,” Kessler

said. “There was a lot of uncertainty and anxiety but people were

very professional and asked a lot of questions.”

The board did not recommend making large salary cuts and still

plans on giving a 1% raise to all remaining teachers, management and

classified employees, she said.

David Perry, the assistant superintendent of administrative

services, said decisions were made following numerous board and staff

meetings and with community input.

“The worst-case scenario -- we might have been laying off 50 or 60

teachers,” Perry said. “We took a position that would go mid-point

between the governor’s proposal and the legislative proposal.”

Lay-off decisions were based entirely on seniority and the number

that would eventually go into effect could not be determined without

more information, Perry said.

Community input was essential in coming up with two solutions, he

said. The first was the decision not to eliminate health aid

positions, non-registered nurses who attend to minor medical

problems. The second, was to implement a state plan to shift the

organization of kindergarten classrooms requiring fewer teachers for

the same number of students. Districts that qualify for this plan

will receive funding from the state.

Teachers and administrators will be brought up to speed on the new

plan at a meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the District Educational

Center.

“When we established the target of the $2.2 million[in cuts],

anytime we didn’t make a reduction, we had to come back with

alternatives,” Perry said.

At Huntington Seacliff Elementary School, only two teachers

received notices, Principal Ann Sullivan said. The teachers have a

great attitude and the school is having to make the best of a

difficult situation, she said.

“[Supt. Gary] Rutherford has done such a good job of keeping the

lines of communication open,” Sullivan said. “There was every

opportunity to generate other solutions. This was the only solution,

as painful as it is.”

Another concern teachers at Perry Elementary have, Joyce said, is

that school may start in the fall before final budget decisions are

made.

“The public really needs to understand how important the state

government and the communication with them is because that is where

the pressure has to go, they have to make a decision and the longer

they wait -- it’s ridiculous,” Joyce said.

* CORAL WILSON is a news assistant who covers education. She can

be reached at (714) 965-7177 or by e-mail at

coral.wilson@latimes.com.