Irvine : 20 Instructors May Be Sent Back to Classroom

Twenty instructors may be reassigned back to the classroom this fall in an effort to save the Irvine Unified School District an estimated $1.6 million.

Notices will be hand delivered or sent by certified mail by Friday to district employees who are being considered for reassignment, said Delaine Richards, the district’s assistant superintendent for personnel services. One district nurse also will be notified that she may be laid off. Final decisions on the reassignments and the nurse’s layoff will be made by June, he said.

The 20 instructors are currently working outside the classroom on “special-type” assignments, in counseling services, elementary art, music and other areas. They would receive the same salary if reassigned to teaching, Richards said.

The action would reduce the district’s budget because the reassigned personnel would fill spots created by teacher attrition. Each year the district, which has 750 teachers, hires between 50 and 80 instructors for all grade levels, Richards said.

The district also is growing, he said, and “we will need an additional (teaching) staff one way or another to fill classrooms,” Richards said.

If the instructors are reassigned, their posts would be eliminated. “We’ll have to pick up the services we can with the staff that’s still there,” Richards said.

District trustees “will be studying the budget between now and (June), but a lot depends on (funding) from the governor and the Legislature,” Richards said.