Tough Choice for Charter Teachers Pits Benefits, Reform Leaves should be extended to avoid punishing those who have opted to innovate.

I am a fourth-grade teacher at the “nationally acclaimed” Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima, a school in the fifth and final year of the charter that made us the first independent charter school in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

I have taught at Vaughn for 14 years--since well before the charter reform process was implemented there in 1993. When my co-workers and I embarked on this experiment in educational reform, we took leaves of absence from our LAUSD jobs to participate. Now, as our school’s charter nears its end, a provision of our union contract forces us to make a choice that is not only unwelcome but also detrimental to the continued success of the school: If we stay at Vaughn we must give up seniority and benefits earned with the LAUSD. If we keep those benefits, we must leave our school and abandon a reform process that is far from complete.

When a school is given charter status, it means there is greater freedom to run the school on a local, grass-roots level. Teachers, parents and students have a greater say in the way things are done.

Since Vaughn became a charter school, our accomplishments and achievements have brought us state and national recognition. We were awarded the 1995 California Distinguished Schools Award, the 1995 Redbook Best Schools Award and, most recently, the 1997 National Blue Ribbon School Award.

Before 1993, or pre-charter, Vaughn Street School, as it was known, was cited as one of the worst schools in the LAUSD. Single-digit test scores had become a pattern and poor attendance triggered audits. We had no “identified” gifted / talented students, and 70% of the teachers had less than three years teaching experience. Twenty-four experienced teachers left Vaughn within a three-year period while 20 grievances were filed against the administration. Two lawsuits were pending and at least three employees were on workers’ compensation leave at a time. We were a typical “throwaway” school that drained public resources.

Now, as we approach the end of our five-year charter, I can write endlessly about how things have turned around. Test scores at Vaughn are double the San Fernando cluster average. We were the first school to reduce class size in grades K-3, with 760 students participating. We relieved overcrowding by building 14 new, state-of-the-art classrooms without LAUSD bond money or building funds. We have extended the school year to 200 days from 163. These are only a few of our accomplishments.

LAUSD school board members and Supt. Ruben Zacarias will undoubtedly renew the school’s charter for another five years. But the original teachers who wrote, signed off on and began implementing that charter will have to resign from the district if they want to continue at Vaughn. We are the teachers who helped make Vaughn the success that it is, yet we have to leave at the end of the 1998 school year unless we are willing to give up well-deserved seniority and retirement health benefits. Why are we being punished for hard work and dedication to school reform? It doesn’t make sense.

On behalf of nearly 20 veteran teachers, I am appealing to Zacarias, all LAUSD board members and especially to United Teachers-Los Angeles, the teachers union, to help us overturn the unjust provision limiting teachers’ individual leaves of absence to five years.

Great things have happened and are continuing to happen at Vaughn, but our work is far from done. Our mission is not yet complete. We want to remain at this great school, so we are asking that our LAUSD leaves be extended for as long as the charter is in effect.

These are district students, on district property who will go on to district middle and high schools. Why must district employees--and we are district employees--be forced to resign simply because we want to remain at a school committed to educational reform?