Large-scale Teacher Layoffs Imminent in Schools across the Nation

With the Federal Government’s new education policies in place, what had been predicted by detractors seem to be coming true. All around the nation there are news of teacher layoffs, and of school boards trying to drastically reduce their numbers of teaching staff to remain eligible for federal funding.

News in the last few days on the issue includes:

• Possible teacher layoffs on the agenda of the governing board of Oroville City Elementary School District scheduled on Wednesday night.
• San Marcos School District in Texas shortens layoff notice period
• Long Beach Unified Board of Education meets on Tuesday and consider firing more than 300 full-time employees
• Temecula Valley Unified School District board will vote to remove 120 teaching positions on Tuesday

And so on, and so forth.

School districts are striving to meet the deadlines set by the federal government and put their economies into shape before March 15 to remain eligible for funding.

Charles Eftychiou, spokesman of Long Beach Unified Board of Education said, “We’ll be looking at a significant deficit if we don’t make more cuts by the new fiscal year.”

According to administrators, there is a possibility that the LBUSD could lose more than $30 million in annual funding, while it is striving to create the best case scenario under Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget plan – that to suffer only a $19 million budget cut and call quits.

Budget cuts and teacher layoffs around the country seem mostly concentrating around early childhood education programs, including the areas of kindergarten and primary classes.

Programs in school districts that were part of a federal program providing free preschool and other child development services for low-income families would be hurt most and lose the highest numbers of teachers.

Not stopping only at teacher layoffs, the Long Beach Unified School District also closed two schools, the Keller Elementary and the Butler Middle School in December.

Considering that last year LBUSD lay off 800 teachers, the proposed layoffs of 300 full-time employees seems mild, and the recession seems to be over.