Stockton Unified Layoffs Protested

It looks like another school district has its feet to the fire over layoffs, with parents showing up to protest. This time however the cuts are not for the teachers of the school district, they are for the support staff. The parents are up in arms about the idea that the school may be forced to cut about 20 bus drivers and 28 members of the support staff.

The school district in question, Stockton Unified, had a board meeting earlier this week to discuss the possibility of cutting these jobs. Parents are against the cuts not because of a philosophical point of view, but because cuts of this magnitude could lead to a complete shutdown of the home-to-school transportation system for the area. That means that students would have to walk, or parents would be obliged to provide rides for their children in order to get them to school.

Of course, the lack of transportation for the 2012-13 school year would only happen if the district decided not set aside other funds for the transportation of students.  The protests were not successful, as the boar voted to issued the layoff notices, 4-2. The vote will allow the school district to issue the notices at any time in the near future, with a 45-day notice span before the actual layoffs go into effect.

Right now however it is unlikely that the school will implement those layoffs immediately. This is largely a precautionary measure due to an uncertain funding for the transportation in the next school year. Last week the states governor reversed plans to cut all transportation funding for the current school year. There was not such good news for the next school year.

The Transportation Coordinator for the district, Carlos Chicas, told the following about the layoff notices to a reporter for Record Net, “We have to work off the assumption funding for transportation will be nonexistent in 2012-13. The district is anticipating that possibility.”

As you can imagine leaders for the union, such as the Dorsey McCowan of the California School Employees Association, looks at the layoffs in a very different light. The same reporter was told the following by the union representative, It’s not right. Kids are going to have to be walking in unsafe neighborhoods to get to school? It’s unthinkable. I don’t think any elected official should play Russian roulette with the safety of students, period.”

At the current moment the city has not issued any layoff notices, but this is not the first time they have had issues with layoffs. Some of you may recall our earlier coverage of the issues with fire fighter layoffs.

“Despite the strong possibility of layoffs and a number of concessions, Stockton Professional Firefighters, Local 456 has been unable to obtain layoff notices for 48 firefighters from Stockton’s City Manager. Without formal layoff notices, the firefighters cannot be placed on the California Displaced Firefighter List used for hiring by local fire agencies. Stockton Professional Firefighters continue contract negotiations with the City of Stockton.”