A confusing email from Superintendent Cindy Marten to school principals two weeks ago led to fears of a massive end-of-year layoff at San Diego Unified School District.
District spokeswoman Linda Zintz said that there will be no layoffs and the district is only restructuring resources in response to Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised budget that left San Diego Unified with a $100 million deficit.
In an email to school principals dated June 10, the Superintendent asked each school to fill vacancies left by teachers participating in the Supplemental Early Retirement Program by cutting one full-time equivalent teacher. This led principals to think that they must cut one teacher per school. Because of this confusion, union leaders, teachers, principals and concerned parents packed a school board meeting that evening accusing Marten of an “11th-hour” staffing cut.
Zintz admitted that the timing of the email may have added to the confusion, but insisted that there will be no layoffs and the restructuring will only affect teachers who are not in the classroom and are in a support position, such as math tutors or English tutors for language learners.
SERP was offered to teachers as a way for the district to save money and have some wiggle room in its budget. About 472 teachers took the early retirement incentive, which left some classroom teaching positions open.
Non-classroom teachers “will be moved into one of those vacant positions, provided they match the credentials,” Zintz said.
She estimated that about 30 teachers will be affected by the staffing plan because some schools, because of their size, will not be able to cut any support staff. Zintz said the actual numbers of affected staff will be presented to the school board at Tuesday’s meeting after each school has the chance to look at its staffing needs.
Bill Freeman, president of San Diego Education Association, the teacher’s union, said the number is actually closer to 100 and faulted the district for not communicating the change better. The plan has been in the works for about a month before the announcement. Freeman said he wishes the district would have communicated with the union before announcing the plan so that it can inform its members.
“We find it disruptive,” he said. “It was not properly coordinated and communicated, and poorly executed.”
Freeman said because the announcement came at the end of the school year, some teachers who are affected will now have to move their classroom over the summer.
School board President Kevin Beiser said he takes full responsibility for the way the announcement was communicated.
“It could have been better communicated,” he said. “We could have explained it in more details.”
Beiser said the plan, which he tentatively signed off on, will not move any support teachers from their schools, but rather have them fill vacant classroom positions within their schools.
The school board is scheduled to approve the budget, including the staff reshuffling, Tuesday.
