Well this sux.. wife lost her job this morn.

[VINMAN]

Just wonderful! Got a phone call. My wife got her walking papers today, from her teaching job after 22 yrs in the district. The budget got voted down last month, and the administration and the union couldnt find a happy medium, so almost 600 school employees ( out of 1100) got canned. 22 yrs of dedication down the drain. But if the district decides to rehire her. She would come back in as a new hire right off the street with no senority. WTF??? Needless to say no jobs were cut in administration.
Her union sucks. They did absolutely nothing to help their members.

[kaisen]

Sorry Vin

[vash]

sorry for the krap news!!! is your wife ok? i hear the news can be pretty traumatic.

my wife aint working either.

[pwd72s]

Actually, her union (NEA?) probably harmed more than helped...it refuses to negotiate when it comes to hours, pay or benefits. They would rather see layoffs.
It's "screw your buddy" as far as the National Extortion Assn. is concerned.

(edit) Sorry to hear the news. Are there any private schools in the area she could apply to? The pay & benefits aren't as good....but private schools are a growth industry nationwide.

[Moses]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

My wife got her walking papers today, from her teaching job after 22 yrs in the district. ...Needless to say no jobs were cut in administration.

Seeing those two sentences together are infuriating. I thought it was supposed to be about education. Apparently not.

[Tim Walsh]

Sounds about right. My wife's teaching endorsements(highly qualified status) was revoked earlier this year because the test she took for them(and scored 2 points off perfect) "didn't have enough people take it to establish a norm" They'll gladly rehire her next year as a teachers assistant........... at 1/3 the pay. If her masters was in Deaf Ed instead of Language and Literacy she'd be fine, even though they're 99.9% the same thing.


I'll bet it's the NEA, that's my wife's union and they're worse than useless. The only reason she's a member is that they're the only people that offer teaching insurance.

Sorry to hear it VIN, but it's happening everywhere it seems.

[Rick Lee]

Sorry to hear about that. This is how unions and politicians make sure the pain is felt in the areas where it is not needed. Budget tight? Oh, we have to lay off first responders, teachers, close parks, etc. Leave the bureaucracy alone, make sure the front line folks are let go so the public feels it.

[Christien]

Wow, that's really surprising. Especially the bit about being rehired as a new hire and losing seniority. My wife is also a teacher, and I couldn't image that happening here. Last time a gov't made significant cuts to education (early 90s) there were teacher walkouts and protest marches down the main streets of every city and town across the province.

I'm the last person to argue on the side of unions, but it sounds like the union really did fail at its job. It should have at least been able to argue for retention of seniority, even if job cuts were truly unavoidable.

[Zeke]

This does suck. It's happening in a lot of districts, big time here.

I'd play it cool, keep a line open and don't piss anyone off. She may be back sooner than you think. It may be as a contractor, part time, lots of scenarios. She wants to be on the a-list.

Meantime, she should take some classes or training. Special ed teachers are in demand. A leg up on the group of unemployed can be useful. That is if she wants to teach that badly.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Sorry to hear about that. This is how unions and politicians make sure the pain is felt in the areas where it is not needed. Budget tight? Oh, we have to lay off first responders, teachers, close parks, etc. Leave the bureaucracy alone, make sure the front line folks are let go so the public feels it.

Exactly! There never is much talk about layoffs in the planning dept...only police and firemen...

[jyl]

That does suck, I’m sorry.

600 cuts out of 1100 total employees – isn’t that like ľ of the teachers? Sounds like something a lot worse that simply the budget woes that most school districts are going through.

If they end up simply re-hiring most of the people laid off but at lower salary/benefits and/or loss of pension vesting, especially if you see a pattern of rehiring only the younger teachers, you might want to investigate potential legal claims. One could conceive of a maneuver like this used as part of an age discrimination scheme.

Federal govt money protected many school districts from the worst of the recession last year, but it won’t do so this year.

My kids’ private school has cut some teaching hours and headcount too, so far it has been sort of logical (lower enrollment = fewer teaching hours needed) but in the 2011/12 budget I foresee a harder choice between teaching staff and administrative staff.

[VINMAN]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

Actually, her union (NEA?) probably harmed more than helped...it refuses to negotiate when it comes to hours, pay or benefits. They would rather see layoffs.
It's "screw your buddy" as far as the National Extortion Assn. is concerned.

(edit) Sorry to hear the news. Are there any private schools in the area she could apply to? The pay & benefits aren't as good....but private schools are a growth industry nationwide.

You hit the nail on the head, Paul! If the union would have agreed to a 1 yr pay freeze, and miniscule payment into their benefits, which most of the employees were for, this could have been avoided. But the union wouldnt budge. But this isnt just her district. It's happening statewide. So there will be alot of competition trying to find another teaching job.

Moses, the admin said they couldnt afford to lose anyone from the central office. because there is "way too much paperwork to do".

[jyl]

That does suck, I’m sorry.

600 cuts out of 1100 total employees – isn’t that like ľ of the teachers? Sounds like something a lot worse that simply the budget woes that most school districts are going through.

If they end up simply re-hiring most of the people laid off but at lower salary/benefits and/or loss of pension vesting, especially if you see a pattern of rehiring only the younger teachers, you might want to investigate potential legal claims. One could conceive of a maneuver like this used as part of an age discrimination scheme.

Federal govt money protected many school districts from the worst of the recession last year, but it won’t do so this year.

My kids’ private school has cut some teaching hours and headcount too, so far it has been sort of logical (lower enrollment = fewer teaching hours needed) but in the 2011/12 budget I foresee a harder choice between teaching staff and administrative staff.

[VINMAN]

John, the 600 hundred is not just teachers. It includes nurses, social workers, cafeteria, custodians, etc etc

[Tim Walsh]

Originally Posted by milt

Meantime, she should take some classes or training. Special ed teachers are in demand. A leg up on the group of unemployed can be useful.

I'm not sure about the other coast, but here SpEd teachers are the bottom of the totem pole at just about every school. For instance my wife's a Deaf Education teacher in a rural county and travels from school to school. They've manipulated her schedule to put the minimum amount of miles "on the clock" at the expense of "off the clock" mileage. Last year she was averaging ~600 miles a week, of those 200 were legitimate commuting miles and the other 400 between schools. This year it's opposite, ~400 nonpaid, 200 paid.

[flatbutt]

Sorry to hear that Vin, 22 years...man thats just disgraceful. Does she get her pension?

We had a very energetic BoE meeting here in Jefferson on that very topic. 12 teachers were on the block but no administrators. There are 6 non-teaching administrators making $100k apiece in one school alone. If they dismissed 3 of the administrators they could have kept 4 or more of those teachers. When yours truly rose up to question the logic of that situation i was told that it is impossible IMPOSSIBLE! to run the school without enough administrators. I say but who is going to do the teaching? They said of course the class sizes will increase. I say thats just nutz, you fire teachers to keep overpaid underworked administrators on the payroll and then increase teachers workloads. Thats when the union puke spoke up to say that any contract issues or contract related issues could not be discussed in an open forum. dooshbag njea

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by milt

I'd play it cool, keep a line open and don't piss anyone off. She may be back sooner than you think. It may be as a contractor, part time, lots of scenarios. She wants to be on the a-list.

I think this is VERY good advise.

Good luck.

[VINMAN]

My wife teahes Special Ed too ( guess thats how she relates to me so well) and Tims right, they get treated like crap even though they have the most training. Every single teaching assistant in the district was let go. Every single one! How the fuch are they going to pull that one off??
Tom, she is 3 1/2 yrs short of her full pension, plus she is too young to get what is left of it also. Plus she loses all other benefits, medical, life insurance that she paid into for 22 yrs. Stuff like that.

As you know I ran for the school board this yr, so I'm pretty involved with the meetings and such. I'ts gonna take a team Of Clydesdales to hold me back at the next board meeting this week.

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

I am very sorry to hear that!

Remember to be very supportive and to not dictate to her! This really has to hurt after 22 years!

People in charge will rarely cut themselves off when there are others below them who can be sent packing. School admin is no different if not more intrenched. I have same feelings about unions who do not listen to their members. union leadership will not make a change as long as they are receiving pay from the members and can keep getting more...

Can she move to the private teaching sector? Maybe a junior college? Tutoring? Or, does she have enough technical background to move into industry as an instructor? Some of the better instructors I have seen were former public school teachers. They knew about keeping your attention and making it a good experience.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Very sorry to hear this.

Two words - "teacher's union".

Get rid of them, get rid of these problems. That and idiot administrators who have nothing better to do than sit around conducting social engineering experiments and turn schools into liberal indoctrination camps.