Judge Weighs Fate of School Employees : Layoffs: Hearing focuses legal issues while workers worry about their jobs--and their students.

Inside the cavernous Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center, seated on a makeshift stage and flanked by attorneys, Administrative Law Judge Paul Hogan spends hours sifting through questions about seniority lists and notification procedures.

Watching from folding chairs on the gymnasium floor, sporting pink ribbons to match their layoff slips, are hundreds of teachers, counselors, school psychologists and others who have been told they might lose their Los Angeles Unified School District jobs because of budget cuts.

Outside, school nurses, many wearing red-and-white buttons that read “Kids Bleed When Nurses Are Cut,” hold an impromptu rally.

“We’re not the ‘Band-Aid Queens’ anymore. . . . What we deal with every day is really a microcosm of this city,” nurse Sharon Ghaleb of Cleveland High School in Reseda said Wednesday.

“We have gang fights, teen pregnancies, communicable diseases,” said Ghaleb, who added that she recently helped a student who nearly died when she suffered a seizure and another who went into full cardiac arrest.

The vignettes are part of the scene that has been unfolding all week as the school district holds required hearings for the 980 tenured staff members who received layoff notices last month.

While the hearing focuses primarily on whether the district followed the law on notification procedures and seniority, the larger issues of what the cuts portend for schools and students are very much a part of the proceedings. In between questions and testimony on the technicalities, Hogan takes time out to hear position statements. During lunch breaks and at hastily called meetings before and after the formal sessions, talk of the cuts’ likely impact dominates conversations.

Many other employees will be affected as the Board of Education, staring at a projected $317-million gap in the coming fiscal year’s budget, prepares for deep cuts in the classroom and in support services.

Warned of a steep drop in funding from the state--which local districts must count on for about three-fourths of their operating budgets--Los Angeles officials also notified nearly 1,200 more tenured staff members that they might be reassigned. Earlier, they notified about 2,000 administrators they might be demoted, and still more teachers and others without tenure could be fired if the financial outlook does not improve.

The district-paid hearing, which began Monday and is expected to last through next Tuesday, is only for the tenured staff members who were notified that the district intends to lay them off by June 30, the end of the current fiscal year. Hogan has until May 7 to rule on the layoffs, and the board has until May 15 to decide whether to proceed with them, but the final decisions probably will not be made until June, when the board acts on next year’s budget.

But even the tentative status of the layoffs has sparked concerns.

“These kids’ needs don’t change. . . . They will still need us just as much,” Effie M. Malray, a nurse at Bethune Junior High School, said, noting that layoff notices went to 276 of the district’s 526 school nurses.

Havoline Williams, who is a nurse for five elementary schools, said support services “are the foundation” for many of the district’s poor, immigrant or other disadvantaged students.

“If (the services) are pulled out from under them, these kids will collapse,” Williams added, referring to a recent report outlining the growing need for more school health services.

Jack Seabern, a social worker for San Fernando Valley schools, said he finds the layoff notices all the more puzzling because of the “strong support” Supt. Bill Anton and other top district officials have voiced for services provided by social workers, psychologists, nurses and counselors.

The two district lawyers at the hearing--both of whom also got pink slips--said they are not unsympathetic.

“Everybody here is talking about the effects on educational programs and students,” said attorney Howard Friedman. “Nobody’s talking about how they’ll make their car payments or other personal concerns.”

“Most of us agree with 90% of the political statements,” Friedman added, noting it was “the harsh fiscal realities” that led district officials to send the notices.

Those realities hit Manual Arts High School print shop teacher Howard Baker especially hard. He got a layoff notice after 10 years on the job, but on Wednesday he was thinking about his students--and thousands of others in the hard-hit vocational and business education programs.

“Most of my kids are gang members . . . a lot of them are only motivated to come to school by my classes, or (physical education) or the music programs,” Baker said. “Take away these things and you’re taking away these kids’ only reason to keep coming to school. . . . They’ll just say, ‘The hell with it,’ and drop out.”

POTENTIAL SCHOOL JOB CUTS

Gearing up for deep budget cuts later this spring, the L.A. Unified School District in March notified 2,173 teachers and others that their jobs may be eliminated by June 30. Of that number, 980 may be laid off; the rest may be reassigned within the district. Hearings on the proposed layoffs are under way before Administrative Law Judge Paul Hogan, who has until May 7 to decide whether layoffs can proceed.

TEACHERS

SUBJECT: POTENTIAL CUTS

Elementary

Elementary music: 75

Secondary

Agricultural Education: 5

Business Education: 68

California Cadet Corps: 4

Driver Education: 21

Health: 58

Home Economics: 37

Industrial Arts/Education

Auto Mechanics: 6

Drafting: 12

Electronics: 9

General Metal: 10

Graphic Arts: 8

Industrial Crafts: 2

Woodworking: 17

Music: 28

Physical Education: 319

Reading: 124

Social Studies: 391

Visual Arts & Crafts: 59

Vocational

Agricultural Education: 13

Apparel Skills: 1

Automotive Mechanics: 1

Business Education: 3

Cosmetology: 5

Food Services: 1

Infant Care: 1

Printing: 3

Electricity: 4

Sheet Metal: 1

Hospital Occupations: 2

Photography: 3

Cabinetmaking: 1

Upholstery: 2

Total teaching positions: 1,294

SUPPORT SERVICES

CATEGORY: POTENTIAL CUTS

Adviser, Career: 15

Adviser, Temp, Special Services: 8

Adviser, Work Experience: 9

Clinical Psychologist: 3

Coordinating Field Librarian: 2

Coordinating Librarian: 5

Coordinating School Audiometrist: 1

Counselor, Adult Vocational: 1

Counselor, Elementary: 32

Counselor, Attendance: 109

Counselor, Student Discipline: 4

Educational Audiologist: 7

JROTC Instructor: 19

Librarian: 72

Psychiatric Social Worker: 17

Psychiatrist: 2

Audiometrist: 18

Nurse: 276

Occupational Therapist, Special Ed: 2

Physical Therapist, Special Ed: 4

Optometrist: 3

Pediatrician: 6

Physician: 3

Psychologist: 226

Senior Educational Audiologist: 1

Senior JROTC Instructor: 15

Senior School Physician: 1

Senior School Psychologist: 13

Young Adult Counselor: 5

Total support services positions: 879

Total positions: 2,173

Source: Los Angeles Unified School District