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Districts Waiting to Re-Hire Teachers Until There's a Budget

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CPR photo/Ben Adler
CPR photo/Ben Adler    

As long as California remains without a budget, many Sacramento-area school districts say they won’t re-hire laid-off teachers – even though they’re getting tens of millions of dollars from the federal government to do just that.


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(Elk Grove, CA)
Friday, September 24, 2010
As long as there's no state budget, about a billion dollars in federal funds intended to re-hire laid-off California teachers could sit in the bank unspent.  As Capital Public Radio's Ben Adler reports, some Sacramento-area school districts say it would be irresponsible to spend that money without a final budget deal.
 
Byrd: "Let's see, open your book up to - subtracting across the zeroes."
 
It's Math time for Lynette Byrd's third graders at Elk Grove Unified School District's Edna Batey Elementary.
 
Byrd: "It's number seven, 307 minus 158."
 
The students write the problem down on small, individual white boards.  And Mrs. Byrd walks among them, whispering some help here and there.
 
Byrd: "Seventeen take away eight is what?"
Student: "Nine."
 
But because of teacher layoffs and budget cuts, there are 24 students in Mrs. Byrd's class this year.  Last year, there were 20.
 
Byrd: "When you have 20 children, you're able to walk around and maybe spend eight minutes per child going around and talking to them about what they're learning and give special instructions.  When you have four more, that cuts it down considerably."
 
This is precisely the gap Congressional Democrats and President Obama intended to fill when they passed legislation last month to save or re-hire up to 160,000 teachers nationwide.  The checks to California school districts should be in the mail by the end of Friday.  And districts like Elk Grove Unified can't wait to get their share of the funds.  Here's Superintendent Steven Ladd:
 
Ladd: "You could use it to reverse some furlough days.  You could use it to augment some salary rollbacks that people have made.  You can add positions."
 
But - he won't.  At least, not yet.
 
Ladd: "Without having a state budget, I think it would be foolhardy to make decisions in this vacuum."
 
… because his OWN budget for THIS school year is one giant question mark.  Many other districts in the state are waiting, too.  Rick Pratt is with the California School Boards Association:
 
Pratt: "Without knowing what their total level of resources will be - including this federal money - is sort of like a pilot trying to fly a jumbo jet with no instruments."
 
Some districts aren't waiting for a state budget.  In northern Sacramento, Twin Rivers Unified says it's already hired back 45 teachers and four custodians - even though the federal funds haven't even arrived yet.