Schools Hit Hard by Cuts

I am a high school English teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Our school lost five teaching positions but not one of our five administrators was removed. My classes have 33 to 46 students per class. At 2 o’clock on Friday afternoon, the classroom registered 93 degrees.

I purchased a water air cooler and an electric fan as well as school supplies for my classes for $482. How many of you are expected to air-condition your own office or provide your own supplies out of your paycheck?

We have a Board of Education that is so far removed from the classroom they have no ideas of the impact their decisions have upon the lives, current and future, of those in their care.

Our principal is home on sick leave. The remaining four administrators are running the school as well as, perhaps better than, when he is there. If he were displaced, we could bring back two teachers, and some additional supplies, for the same money.

Our former principal, who declared he’d retire rather than spend one hour in a classroom, is now a substitute principal. When he was principal at our high school, he served soup in the teacher’s cafeteria--there wasn’t much else that filled his time. Now, as a substitute principal, he sits at a vacant principal’s desk while the on-site assistant principals run the school. His pay is upwards of $75,000 per year--the cost of 2 1/2 teachers.

In this budget crunch, the Board of Education continually looks to the classroom to save money. Students and teachers are not part of the “old boys’ club” whose motto is “Protect and promote our own.”

ADRIENNE MACK

Shadow Hills