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UESF
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Paras laid off:
Supe bases decision on integrity of SSCs & WSFDespite our presence and protest, the Board of Education voted 4 to 3 on January 27 to proceed with paraprofessional layoffs of 13 FTEs. The layoffs have a 45-day period before they will take effect on March 15.
This followed the January 13 UESF rally and packing of the board meeting by more than 150 paraprofessionals and teachers fighting to protect paras’ jobs. The demonstration resulted in the Board’s decision to hold off para cuts until they could be sure all possible budget cut alternatives were explored.
Misguided budget cuts
Targeted positions mostly included paras who work directly with students to improve basic skills in math and reading. “When educators work under increasing pressure to raise achievement and test scores, these cuts seem illogical, Bradley Reeves, UESF Vice President, Paraprofessionals, said. “The money saved from such misguided budget cuts would have been just a drop in the bucket.”
UESF President Dennis Kelly appealed to the board to find more creative ways to balance the district’s budget than on the backs of paras who had already endured drastic cuts last spring. He asked the district to use the same creativity it had used in increasing Superintendent Ackerman’s compensation by $30,000 when it gave her a housing allowance and permitted her to cash in vacation days.
Union members chanted and spoke of broken relationships that would have resulted from the cuts, and about unnecessary mid-year interruptions to the schools and communities of which paras are a crucial part.
"We, as a district, are receiving a failing score on our AYP: Acknowledge and Appreciate Your People."
–Halima MarshallHalima Marshall, Visitacion Valley Elementary School teacher and Building Representative, demanded the district to consider the effects of their decision. Addressing requirements under state standards to “create and maintain an effective environment for learning,” she asserted, “as teachers, we cannot do that alone. We need our paras who are the foundation of our schools. We, as a district,” she continued, are receiving a failing score on our A.Y.P: Acknowledge and Appreciate Your People.”
Off again, on again
Though SFUSD Labor Relations Officer Tom Ruiz told the union on the next Friday before the Tuesday Board meeting that para layoffs would not be on the agenda, President Kelly learned on the Monday afternoon before, that Superintendent Arlene Ackerman placed it back on the agenda. With hardly any time to turn people out, UESF filled the room again on January 27.At that meeting, UESF Sergeant-at-Arms Roberto Michel urged the Board, “When you think you can’t find the money, then look again.” However, Ackerman made it clear that money was not her issue, but rather the integrity of the weighted student formula for site funding.
Describing the school site council process as “not perfect,” and often based on incomplete and incorrect data,” UESF Executive Vice President Linda Plack asserted, “The integrity of the School Site Councils should not be used as a hammer to accomplish these layoffs.
Integrity– new twist for cuts
The union contended that the crux of the issue was people, their work, and the children and classes who would feel the impact of the layoffs and consolidations. Kelly explained that it was a “new twist for the District to ask for these cuts in the name of integrity.Reeves pointed out that it is disingenuous for the District to maintain that each of the School Site Councils at the effected schools independently decided to make the cuts, particularly when affected UESF members reported over and over again that they had not been included in the process.
