Christopher Peak Photo
Displaced teachers, late, hustle to Central Office for Thursday meeting.
New Haven will have at least 50 fewer teachers in its schools next year — but it may be able to get there without any current teachers losing their jobs.
Fifty-three certified teachers found out that their jobs are being eliminated but that they will likely be reassigned elsewhere next year, as the district tries to avoid a repeat of last year’s layoffs.
Schools districtwide will see fewer teachers this coming academic year, and some uncertainty about who will be teaching where. The cuts could also mean bigger classes or fewer courses, as the superintendent has previously said the district needs “right-sizing” in matching numbers of students with teachers.
Most of the 53 teachers (out of nearly 2,000 systemwide) found out about their pending transfers on Wednesday. Principals notified them individually that they’d be taking the brunt of the budget cuts. Later that night, district officials sent an email summoning all 53 of them to the district’s headquarters for an hour-long meeting with the human resources director and their union representatives that attendees described as uncomfortable.
Superintendent Carol Birks: No budget details.
To close next year’s projected $30.7 million budget shortfall, Superintendent Carol Birks has said that she plans to create a “district-wide staffing model” that would save $12.1 million with staffing reductions. She had previously estimated more than 170 teachers could see their jobs eliminated.
But while parents have repeatedly asked for details on what that means, Birks has stayed mum on what her new staffing model will look like. For months, the district administration has avoided talking about next year’s staffing, even when it’s been on the agenda at the board’s finance committee meetings. And for months, the administration has also declined to release a detailed copy of a site-based budget, even when Birks had previously said her staff planned to release it before a late April aldermanic budget workshop.
On Thursday afternoon, schools Chief Operating Officer Michael Pinto did not respond to an emailed list of questions. Superintendent Birks was not in her office and did not return a call to her cell phone.
An hour after this story was published, Pinto sent a statement outlining the four-month timeline and the projected budget savings from these staffing reductions. “If these budget mitigation efforts are successful,” he wrote, “the approximate savings from the reductions are $3.7 million.”
Dave Cicarella, the teachers union president, said that, along with nearly 30 retirements and resignations so far, the moves will hopefully allow the district to avoid layoffs.
“We are looking to avoid layoffs at all costs. Nobody wants to be transferred, but we want to honor the jobs of our junior colleagues,” he said. “Right now, this seems to be the number, and we’re hoping that’s where it stays and that we can manage it by attrition.”
Cicarella called the news of the displacements a mixed message for the district’s faculty.
“Right now you have one group of teachers that are breathing a sign of relief: ‘OK, maybe I won’t get laid off.’ And you have another group who’s saying, ‘I’ve been in this school for 15 years and now I’m being transferred to another building.’”
Darnell Goldson: What is the superintendent doing?
Several school board members said they had no clue that so many positions were being eliminated this week.
Board President Darnell Goldson said that Superintendent Birks did call him on Thursday morning to let him know that she’d be transferring teachers. But after their conversation, Goldson said, he thought that was a “normal thing that happens during this part of the year.”
After hearing more details, Goldson said the elimination of 53 teaching positions felt “problematic.”
“I probably should have asked more questions when she called me. I thought it was normal to move around based on vacancies and so on; I wasn’t aware that she was actually eliminating positions, and I wasn’t aware that it was 53 teachers,” Goldson said. “I would have liked to have had a discussion with the board and with the teachers union before. I’m not quite sure what the hell she’s doing. It’s a little concerning to me.”
Teachers walking into 54 Meadow St. on Thursday afternoon said they felt incensed. In interviews where they asked to remain anonymous, seven said the notice felt last-minute, and the process felt unfair. At least one considered calling it quits, rather than dealing with the move to a new school.
One teacher called the news of the transfers “upsetting and unfair.” She wondered aloud how many administrative positions are being eliminated. She said she supported the superintendent and blamed the school board for mismanagement. “It’s mind-boggling,” she said.
One teacher said she felt betrayed by the district’s spending priorities. “I gave my heart and my soul” to this job, she said. “I’d like to know where the money in New Haven goes, because the mill rate is high. We never have money for any paper or supplies; I have to buy everything out of my own pocket.”
One teacher predicted the cuts will do a “disservice to the children.” “You’re going to have giant class sizes,” she said. “Parents should be up in arms about this. You can’t teach when you’re trying to manage a class” with 30 students or more, which would exceed the 27-student cap in the union contract.
Dave Cicarella: Trying to avoid layoffs.
Principals, in consultation with the assistant superintendents, selected all 53 teachers who will be reassigned. Cicarella said Central Office gave each school a target number of positions based on their enrollment, but it was up to the principals themselves to figure out how to arrive at that reduction.
“They met with each principal and said, ‘Here’s how many kids you have. What can you live without?’” Cicarella said. “It was an exhaustive process, from winter right into spring.”
For instance, that might mean that a school with low math scores might decide to keep six math teachers who could teach smaller Advanced Placement classes, even though it would mean it had to cut down to just three social-studies teachers.
That process is a change from previous years, when Central Office gave each school a dollar figure, rather than a total number of positions. Cicarella said that was a “stupid system” that punished more senior teachers who earn more.
When principals chose which teachers would be transferred out of the school, seniority did not matter. That’s because the union contract protects only a teacher’s job, not where they do it, Cicarella explained.
“Our jobs are protected, by seniority, from layoffs, but not from reassignment,” Cicarella said. However, “where [seniority] could come in is, if after being put up for reassignment and told there are no vacancies with your certification, now you are going to bump someone. At that point, it is a layoff.”
Teachers who are being displaced will be asked to reapply at other schools. They will have priority for vacant positions, which will be available only to internal candidates at first.
“In many districts, they’re just assigning the teachers: ‘You’re going to Cross, you’re going to Hillhouse.’ But every principal wants to be able to pick their staff, and teachers want to have control,” Cicarella said. “It’s a time-consuming and laborious process, but it’s a much better scenario than being assigned.”
A gray day at 54 Meadow St.
Before Thursday’s meeting, several teachers said that they felt “targeted” and “singled out.”
One teacher said he felt that he was being retaliated against for his medical problems. Even though he’d received top evaluations, he’d missed days of work for doctor appointments. “I’m really pissed,” he said. “Why me, out of the seven teachers who are qualified to teach this?” Another teacher said he felt that his administration had filed complaints about his work performance. He said the reassignment seemed like “just another, more direct way” to get rid of him.
Many of the teachers being reassigned are veterans, with some who’ve been teaching for two decades. One teacher speculated that’s because teachers with tenure are “more outspoken.”
Cicarella said that principals needed to provide a “rationale” for why they selected certain teachers. Some teachers said those explanations are being withheld from them.
Cicarella added that he’d need to have proof to challenge any of the picks as retaliatory. “It’s a tough one because many teachers feel that way. When I look at some names on the list, they do raise an eyebrow for me,” he said. “But If I’m going to charge an administrator with some type of prejudice or unprofessionalism, I better have something tangible. Otherwise, that’s not fair and not legal.”
Besides the loss of teachers, Cameo Thorne, the district’s restorative practices program director, said that instability among the adults in the building can have a negative impact on the kids.
“Kids like structure and they like stability. Any time when they come to school and their life has been chaotic, the only constant is their teacher. When too many of those teachers are moved out of the building, they suffer a kind of mini-trauma,” Thorne said. “We need a real understanding of that teacher’s place in the building and making the decisions that keep the focus on the kids, which is where it should be all along.”