Teachers: Cuts Taking Toll in Schools Already; UFT Begins Lobbying To Limit Classroom Reductions

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

As labor leaders, education advocates and elected officials announced their plans at a Feb. 10 press conference to fight the double whammy of city and state education cuts, Teachers were reeling under the impact already being felt in the classroom.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow RICK KING: 'Cuts will affect kids' performance.'

Beach Channel High School in Rockaway Park lost 10 Teachers last week. Three of the eight who were excessed lost their jobs as a result of the cuts, according to the school's chapter leader.

A Department of Education spokeswoman responded that the Teachers were excessed due to a 200-student decline in enrollment.

No Supplies, Few Subs

Teachers at P.S. 11 in Woodside, Queens were told orders for books, chalk and other classroom supplies would be canceled and substitute hiring would be cut, forcing Teachers to cover one another's classes during absences.

Another Queens elementary school, P.S. 151 is losing its after-school program for the more-than 60 children who are English Language Learners.

"We just had a big parade that cost millions and they're cutting the schools?" said Alice Cooper-Jackson, a 23-year veteran Teacher at P.S. 111 in The Bronx, referring to the Feb. 5 Super Bowl celebration. "We talk about children first, but this is children last."

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow 'A DISASTER': English as a Second Language Teacher Katie Kurjakovic said that the city budget cuts would mean that at her elementary school in Queens, classroom supplies would be hard to come by and the school would no longer be able to afford substitutes when Teachers were ill. 'The schools should be protected,' she said. 'There's got to be another way to handle this.'

Many schools plan to absorb the cuts by reducing their per-session allotments, which pay Teachers and school staff for work performed after school, which is often small group tutoring sessions for students whose performance is lagging.

UFT: Open DOE Books

The United Federation of Teachers delegates assembly passed a resolution Feb. 6 calling for the Department of Education to open its books and ensure that any funding decreases bypassed classrooms.

Some Teachers believe that the DOE should be exempt altogether from the 2.5-percent cuts this year and 5 percent next year to all city agencies announced by Mayor Bloomberg Jan. 24.

"There is a direct correlation between the money that goes to the schools, the resources we have for the kids and their performance," said Rick King, a social studies Teacher at M.S. 2 in Brooklyn.

Others said that DOE central bureaucracy was dripping with fat and could absorb the entirety of the cuts without passing them on to the schools.

'Redundant' Bureaucrats

"Let [Mayor Bloomberg] cut some of his testing and administrative costs," said Irene Shapiro, a science Teacher at P.S. 151. "I don't think the DOE should be exempt. A lot of those people are redundant."

A massive organizing meeting that attracted 150 union and community leaders Feb. 7 at the Manhattan offices of Local 32 BJ of the Service Employees International Union included approximately 50 elected city and state officials as well as UFT President Randi Weingarten, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Ernest Logan and AFL-CIO Central Labor Council Executive Director Ed Ott.

"It reminded me of last year when we all organized around Put the Public Back in Public Education," said Ocynthia Williams, a parent leader with the Coalition for Educational Justice. "It was supposed to be a planning meeting, but it was more like a rally."

Chance to Lessen Pain?

The meeting was closed to the press, but advocates who attended said there was a palpable sense in the room that at least some of the cuts could be averted, or deflected from the classroom, in spite of the looming economic downturn. Upcoming joint actions will include public shows of force as well as lobbying in Albany and at the City Council.

Attendees, from a myriad of Democratic Party-aligned advocacy groups and unions, were focused both on city cuts worth $180 million already implemented in school budgets and $324 million slated to be pared next year. Discussion also addressed cuts in promised increases in state education funding to the city of $100 million.

Beach Channel High School UFT chapter leader David Pecoraro, in his 25th year of teaching math, said that his school had eight Teachers excessed and two retired, all in the space of a week, including math, English and business instructors. "If there were a choice I would say that the DOE would be exempt from the cuts altogether," he said. "There should be taxes on the upper incomes - those people have been making a lot of money for a long time."

Sees 'Disaster' Looming

Katie Kurjakovic, who teaches English as a Second Language at P.S. 11, said that Teachers were dreading the cuts to substitutes. She said the only solution would be to pull reading and math Teachers out of their small-group interventions to run classes, or to divide children between existing classes, inflating class size.

"It's a disaster because there was very little of the money that was liquid at this point in the year," she said. "The schools should be protected. There's got to be another way to handle this."