School Board OKs Final Layoff Notices

Nearly 500 employees in the Sacramento City Unified School District will next year if temporary tax increases aren't extended by voters or the state legislature, the district's board of education decided in a brief special meeting Tuesday.

The district met Tuesday evening to move forward with the layoff notification process after receiving a court finding saying most of its unique layoff procedures were legal, and will now send out final layoff notices Friday.

The district is trying to ensure no teachers are laid off from its under-performing "priority schools," where sweeping reforms and new programs are being implemented. It has argued that because teachers at the six priority schools received special training this year, their jobs should be saved, even at the expense of more senior teachers elsewhere.

The only priority school that will face teacher layoffs is Hiram Johnson High School, where not all teachers were fully trained in the district's new programs, according to the findings of a state judge.

Board Trustee Donald Terry, whose area includes Rosemont, said the priority schools have been hammered by layoffs each year, making it difficult to implement long-term reform there because new teachers were always arriving.

Terry said schools in Rosemont may have slightly more layoffs because of the program, but stressed it wouldn't have a negative effect.

"The kids in our area won't suffer from this," Terry said after the meeting. "Otherwise I wouldn't have voted on it."

He said schools in Rosemont are among the best in the district, and would be "more resilient" to teacher turnover or layoffs.

"The challenges in other neighborhoods are not what we're seeing in Rosemont," he said. "There are some kids in other areas that are really struggling and have the odds stacked against them."

District spokesman Gabe Ross said the process of skipping priority schools would lead to more layoffs elsewhere, but he didn't know whether schools in Rosemont would be impacted.

Terry said people affected by the possible layoffs should turn their attention to whether voters will have the option to extend tax increases and avoid the district's "worst-case scenario" budget all together.

"That's the more important discussion to have," he said.