182 Teachers in Irvine Will Go on Notice

Irvine Unified trustees, driven to slice $5 million from the coming school year’s budget, have voted to send layoff notices to 182 teachers.

The decision on what would be one of the largest layoffs in the history of Orange County schools had been expected for months. The school board’s decision Tuesday night nonetheless cast a pall over this suburban school district, known for its skilled staff, strong curriculum, dedicated parents and high-striving students.

Trustees acted this week because, by law, initial layoff notices must be sent to teachers by March 15.

Should voters approve a flat $95-per-parcel tax on April 11, officials hope the additional $3 million generated would reduce significantly the number of teachers who will receive final layoff notices by a May 15 deadline.

If not, district officials estimate that about 120 teachers eventually will lose their jobs because of the cuts. More teachers than that will be receiving initial pink slips because of district and contract rules governing layoffs.

Not passing the parcel tax would be “a huge mistake” for the city of Irvine, said Plaza Vista first-grade teacher Rebecca Caffery, a likely layoff target who has been nominated for one of the district’s highest awards for a new educator, the “teacher of promise.”

“They’re losing good teachers here,” said Caffery, herself a graduate of Irvine schools. “I wanted to put my energy in my hometown. I wanted to give back.”

Emotional school trustees said they had little choice but to cut inside the classroom after the failures of three parcel tax measures since 1983. The only foreseeable reprieve is the April parcel tax, which would exempt senior citizens. It would help fill much of the budget gap and save most of the teaching jobs.

“This is probably the most painful thing that the board has had to do, right after $5 million in budget cuts,” school board President Jeanne Flint said. “It is certainly not an action that anyone on this board is looking forward to, but it is our fiscal responsibility to do this.”

The cuts, if they take effect, are the most significant expected in the state this year, said Tommye W. Hutto, a spokeswoman for the California Teachers Assn., the state’s largest teachers union.

“That’s a very large number of teachers,” Hutto said. “If that’s not the biggest one in Orange County [history], it’s very close.”

Facing a $4-million budget hole, Irvine Unified trustees voted Feb. 1 to eliminate the district’s enriched arts, music and science programs, increase class sizes and reduce health clerks, counselors and librarians. The approved cuts, which will go into effect in the next school year, will save the district nearly $5 million. District officials asked board members to include a $1 million safety cushion until the conclusion of layoff hearings with teachers.

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The district, which already has cut $12 million over the last decade, has offered enrichment programs in science, math and the arts that other districts have long since dropped. The extra programs mean Irvine employs 10% more teachers than similar districts. Irvine is also hindered by a state funding formula set in the 1970s, before the suburb blossomed. As a result, this wealthy suburban community receives about $100 less a student than the average California district.

Decisions about who is actually laid off are based on a calculation of job seniority and specialized skills. Irvine teachers hired within the last three or four years are left to wait and watch--knowing their futures hang in the balance.

They still get up every morning, head to the front of their classrooms and convey a love of learning any way they can. But after school and in the teachers’ lounge, many think about dusting off their resumes. They probably won’t have to scan the want ads for long, given their experience and a nationwide teacher shortage. Still, they wonder if they’ll have to move or uproot their own children from school.

“It’s scary,” Irvine teachers union President Gail Rothman said. “When people talk about downsizing in industry, you don’t have to wait six months [for the layoffs to come] and you don’t have to go in with a happy face because you’re in front of 25 or 30 kids. When you’re a teacher, you have to be on all the time. I admire them so much--this is nervous and unsettling, but they’re still going in and doing a great job with the kids.”

One of the hardest hit schools is likely to be Plaza Vista, an elementary that opened its doors this year with 31 teachers. Given the chance to pick his educational dream team, principal Bruce Terry tapped some veteran Irvine teachers and recruited from a private JewishAcademy. He plucked hires from Brea and Santa Cruz. While he remains hopeful that the parcel tax will pass, he knows that otherwise about 18 of his teachers may be let go.

He used a baseball analogy to express his frustration: “I kind of feel like I got [to recruit] Mo Vaughn and Bobby Grich, but now someone said, ‘We’re not going to play the All-Star Game next year.’ ”

Still, Terry said he has been impressed that “to the person, every single teacher here has pulled together and supported one another, frankly, incredibly so.”

Caffery, one of Terry’s new teachers, sees everything as an opportunity for learning in her first-grade classroom.

When her students wanted polliwogs for pets, it became a research project on what they eat. Shopping for them was a chance to perform a cost-benefit analysis on the prices of pet store aquariums. Buying them morphed into a fund-raising activity, a bake sale peddling cookies for a quarter. Now the kids feed Frogger and Sabrina daily, and even write letters to them.

Caffery said she would walk away from her job if she thought the money saved would help the students, say, by cutting class sizes.

“I think of the impact on education first,” she said. “Then I think of my job. I planted roots here, and I was ready to grow. These kids, I wanted to see them in sixth grade. I started their education, but I’m probably not going to see them work through the rest of [it].”

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Brywood School first-grade teacher Kristi McNitt, in her second year of teaching, is in similar straits. A Brywood alumna herself, McNitt comes in early to meet with colleagues. She totes in tools from home to make science experiments come alive.

She’s trying to keep a “positive attitude” as she updates her resume and list of references.

“A lot of districts won’t hire again until May, but I thought I’d make some contacts now, she said. “If everything goes the way it [looks] right now, I won’t have a job. I’m trying to prepare as well as I can and fulfill my commitment here with my kids.”

Maddening as the present uncertainty is, Irvine teachers would be in demand elsewhere. Faced with growing enrollment and increasing rates of teacher retirement, many local school districts expect to be hiring. The nearby Capistrano Unified School District, for example, is opening four new schools and likely will hire as many as 200 new teachers.

“Capistrano is always looking to hire high-caliber teachers,” said Wilma Harvey, the assistant superintendent for personnel in the South County district. “And we know Irvine has high-quality teachers. We would be right in there looking at [applications from] Irvine teachers, along with everyone else. . . . I doubt they would languish.”