State of California Worstens

It looks like things are getting much, much worse for the schoolteachers in the state of California. We have been talking a lot, in the last couple of weeks and months about the kinds of cuts that are being made to the schools in the state. In a lot of cases those cuts are being made in generic terms we know how many workers are going to be let go, but we do not know how many of them will be classroom teachers. Today we had some light shed on those numbers.

According to information released by the California Teachers Association an estimated 19,500 classroom teachers were given layoff notices over the past couple of weeks. The layoff notices had to be given by the 15^th of March in order to be legal under the laws of the state of California. So if an educator did not get a layoff notice by that date then they are free and clear, at least until next years deadline.

The cuts, which are coming because of the need to cut 20 Billion in funding from the state education budget. Unless the schools get a tax increase from voters in the near future, which is on the ballet, the schools will have to make these cuts, which average out to about $370 per student in the state. The only good news for schools is that the number of enrolled students at California schools is, depending on where you live, either staying stable or shrinking.

In Orange County large scale cuts are expected. Here is an excerpt from our earlier coverage on the matter:

“As you may have noticed from our earlier posts the state of the California schools is precarious at best and it looks like things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. This the time school district that is taking the hit is Orange County. The Orange County school districts sent out layoff notices to a minimum of 1,517 workers, though some sources are estimating that more notices did go out over the course of the week. In that mix are about 244 classroom teachers.

The notices let the workers know that unless serious changes are made to the state budget, or their unions become ready to make some serious concessions, these workers could be out of a job when the school year ends in June.”

Similar cuts have been made to the San Garbriel School District:

“Pink slips went out to 500 workers for the end of the school year. The layoffs notices had to go out by yesterday in order to satisfy both the state laws and the contract that the schools have with the union.

At the current moment the school has laid off everyone that they think that they might need to let go of in order to be prepared for the fiscal realities of the state budget when it comes. On the whole the system allows the schools to cut back on workers when they will need to, but it also means that unless the worst case scenario comes to pass the majority of the workers will not be let go. So there is some hope for the displaced workers. The states final budget will be announced some time in May.”

Of course these cuts are not popular. In a statement to the NC Times Online ,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said the following:

“Every pink slip being issued is an unwelcome and undeserved blow to the morale of the teacher who receives it. They should also remind all of us of the urgency of finding the will and the resources to end the financial emergency facing our public schools.”