This is going to sound overly pessimistic and cynical, but it’s hard to read an article like this and not grit my teeth.

The anecdotal stories of layoffs are a useful tactic to maybe get the public to understand that there are faces and names to the teachers that are continuing to be cut and villainized in the current political rhetoric.

However, the article points to the inequity of cuts and to the general (more than usual) messy situation of layoffs in LAUSD. Hamilton students are in tears and parents are shocked by the loss of teachers they loved. This is something new for these students.

At Manual Arts, I want to applaud the continuing efforts of students to fight for teachers they are losing. But the picture is muddy and isn’t getting clearer any faster.

Here’s what would have been different if Steve Lopez had written about Manual Arts:

1. there wouldn’t have been a sense of surprise: amazing teachers–like my friend Peter Carlson–have received layoff or Reduction in Force (RIF) notices every single year. It’s not even a surprise.
2. students have been trying to be proactive in fighting for their education for a long time: Student walkouts became a persistent aspect of how students tried to fight for their teachers and for their education. These were both effective and detracting; some students felt like they were able to engage in public discourse that directly affected them; some students were able to miss a whole lot of class.

 

And before reading further, you might want to compare the general data–particularly the College Opportunity Ratio (COR)–for Hamilton and Manual Arts to see how these RIFs will play out.

 

Both images come from the UCLA IDEA’s California Educational Opportunity Report.

A Timeline for Dummies

Manual Arts is also a great microcosm of the mess in the district. If you want to know what the plight of public education looks like, here’s my best play-by-play of how it’s played out in … oh six months at my school:

November: Our sixth principal in the six years I’ve been here quits. [This is a highly politicized event that divides the campus. To leave things simple: I felt that Principal Irving was an effective leader in his professional role and I see his departure as a loss for our students. Not everyone will agree with me.]

December: Rumors of reconstitution and heavy RIF numbers are shared in weekly union meetings. It becomes clear that the QEIA grant funding that was paying for nearly 20 teachers and other faculty positions at the school is not being renewed next year. [This is a highly politicized event that divides the campus: some teachers blame our school’s network partner and leadership staff for the fact that we did not meet benchmarks that we set. Some teachers blame the school district for imposing benchmarks on us that we did not meet. In any case, these are real jobs that we had saved with these funds… because of these saved jobs, it looks like Manual Arts did not have a lot of RIFd teachers at our school, which directly impacts what happens as a result of … the Reed Settlement.]

January: The Reed Settlement is Approved. Anticipating the many layoffs that will likely occur under the current doomsday budget, 45 schools that would be impacted the most are placed on a list that would protect them. [This is a highly politicized event that divides union. To leave things simple: the settlement protects RIFd teachers at some schools but disrupts campuses that are not typically affected by these layoffs – schools in affluent in communities, schools that don’t have newer teachers, school that are probably doing academically better … probably schools like Hamilton High School.

[Oh yeah, despite being either the lowest or second lowest performing school in the district (depending on if you count Jordan’s missing API data from last year) … Manual Arts was NOT on the list of protected schools. Our administrative team was efficient enough in the past with shielding our staff from layoffs that we did not look like a school that will need to be protected. Instead the RIFs from other schools will burden our school on top of the RIFs we will already have. This will be very bad as we shall see.]

February: District RIF projections are around 5,000 teachers, we are told our school will move to a traditional calendar, Manual Arts is requested to create a plan to show the superintendent why we should not be reconstituted­–all staff reapply for positions. [This is a highly politicized event that divides the campus. Several teachers–myself included–are seen as colluding with our network partner and are not seen as trustworthy.]

March 8: One of our network partners, WestEd, announces that they will not be involved with our campus in the near future. [This is a highly politicized event that divides our campus. Blame is placed on our other network partner.]

March 11: At an afterschool faculty meeting, our teachers are told that we will have 32 RIF teachers. In addition, (and partly because we are going to a traditional calendar) we are losing 50 other teachers, 10 long-term sub positions, and 8 district intern teachers. Yes, we are losing 100 out of 190 teachers. Oh yeah, and our expected enrollment next year is anticipated to be the same.

March 15: 32 Manual Arts teachers receive certified mail letters that let them know they are being laid off next year; they are neither surprised nor clear about what this means in terms of what will actually happen (RIFs are projected and some are rescinded in the past). Steve Lopez writes about the shock at Hamilton High School.

March 18: Students begin demonstrating at Manual Arts. Reports of walkouts and sit-ins trickle into texts and facebook updates throughout the day. [Update: brief coverage of student efforts here.]

Without adding too much more commentary, I want to point out how the snowball has been rolling into an avalanche throughout the year. Morale, unsurprisingly, is at an all time low at our school; we are still a big question mark in terms of our future. It could be minutes or days until we know about if our school is reconstituted. A mass exodus of teachers–those RIFd and those that have just had enough–is expected at the end of the year. I also want to point out how all of these events are layered in meaning. With each major announcement, the school roils in finger pointing. Calls for unity are voiced; a union election is wedged throughout all of this, as are the Public School Choice results, as is an election that affects the School Board, as is a new incoming Superintendent next month, as is an ongoing attack on unions and public education. The results compound rhetoric and confusion. At the end of the day, how will any of this help the 3400 students that will be walking into our classrooms at Manual Arts next year. Or tomorrow?