Scores of Teachers Statewide Receive Layoff Notices

Several thousand teachers across California received layoff notices Thursday from financially strapped school districts seeking to cut red ink.

As many as 3,000 pink slips, and perhaps more, were handed out by school systems in Orange County, Pasadena, Oceanside, Sacramento, San Francisco and elsewhere -- although the numbers were far smaller than original estimates and many may be rescinded in the summer as districts get a better handle on their revenues.

About 30,000 of California’s estimated 300,000 teachers were warned in March that their jobs could be in jeopardy next school year. But the figure for actual layoff notices dwindled by Thursday’s deadline because districts received a somewhat brighter financial picture from the state and had cut nonteaching spending, including transportation, maintenance and athletic programs. In addition, some districts are hoping private fund-raising and proposed parcel taxes will improve the situation by the time students return in the fall.

There was no central clearinghouse for data on the teacher layoffs from the state’s more than 1,000 districts, but union leaders and education experts said they expected the number to reach several thousand and that any full count would take several weeks. An informal survey of districts suggested a number of 2,000 to 3,000 layoff notices. Districts abided by seniority rules that target the newest teachers first, but with so much money to be trimmed, even veteran teachers were vulnerable.

Those teachers who received pink slips Thursday struggled to cope with the numbing prospect of being unemployed in the fall -- and possibly leaving the profession to sustain themselves.

“I have to feed my family,” said David Quinonez, a mathematics teacher at Alameda High School near Oakland for the last five years.

“At this point I have lost my job, so my quandary here is what do I do?” he said. Quinonez, a father of two, said he may have to return to his former job as a handyman, remodeling kitchens and bathrooms, to make ends meet.

At Morris Elementary in Cypress, two second-grade teachers and a fourth-grade teacher received final layoff notices Wednesday. Since receiving the first layoff notice in March, second-grade teacher Jeannie Pak has applied to eight school districts but hasn’t heard from any.

She’ll probably go to graduate school to get a master’s degree in education. She said some of her peers plan to move out of state, where they have heard that the teaching job market is better, but she doesn’t want to leave her Southern California roots.

Pak, a second-year teacher, said she wasn’t surprised when her principal called her in to give her the final layoff notice: “It was sort of like putting a period at the end of a sentence.”

Other teachers whose jobs had been in jeopardy experienced relief to learn they would not be laid off.

Among them is Katie Renger, 24, a first-year world history teacher at Foothill High School in Ventura. When district officials told her she would probably lose her job, she said she resigned herself to becoming a waitress or an advanced paper filer to wait out the crisis until she could return to the classroom. But after buying a house in October, she felt the extra stress of uncertainty, she said.

Now things have turned around for the better.

“My principal came into my room after school to tell me,” she said. “I just jumped on him, with a huge hug, screaming, ‘Thank you! Thank you!’ It was such a huge relief.”

Wayne Johnson, president of the California Teachers Assn. union, said he expected many of the layoffs to be rescinded because of staff attrition and enrollment growth. “It’s going to be pretty much business as usual in September when all the hoopla is said and done,” he said. “Count then how many teachers lose their jobs. I think it’s going to be very few.”

More than 220 Orange County teachers received final layoff notices this week, most of them from Capistrano and Newport-Mesa Unified. More than 850 preliminary layoff notices were sent to county teachers in mid-March, with districts including Tustin, Laguna Beach and La Habra City able to rescind most or all of them.

In addition to the teachers notified this week, more than 500 temporary teachers from several other districts may not have their contracts renewed this fall, district officials said.

But even where the number of layoffs was reduced, the anticipated losses felt like a blow for many districts under pressure to attract qualified teachers and raise test scores with dwindling resources.

Fewer teachers will lead to larger class sizes, especially in middle schools and high schools, they said.

“We’re clearly moving backward,” said Supt. James A. Fleming of the Capistrano Unified School District, which sent notices to 117 of its 2,436 teachers, about half of the losses originally envisioned. The layoffs include 53 third-grade teachers whose jobs will disappear as the district abandons the program that allows no more than 20 students per teacher in that grade next year to save money.

“It breaks my heart to see us in the position of having to erode the class-size reduction program,” Fleming said. “But we’re going to stay the course and do the best job we can, even with larger classes.”

The money and resources the Capistrano district has invested in training first- and second-year teachers being let go is frustrating, he said, but even worse is the discouraging message layoffs send to aspiring teachers: “We could be planting the seeds of a major teacher shortage.”

Fleming remains optimistic that the state will institute educational reforms in the next few months that will keep the same magnitude of budget cuts from hitting schools next year.

But Placentia-Yorba Linda Supt. Dennis M. Smith, also president of the Orange County superintendents’ group, thinks the extent of funding cuts will likely be the same. While it has been good to hear about the large number of rescinded notices, he said, he does not think districts will have the luxury of saving positions or programs next year.

“Anything that has been even a relatively close call, we’ve already made,” Smith said. “What’s left on the chopping block are really valued programs that no one has had the heart to cut, but next year everyone will have to be brutal. That’s the frightening part.”

Cypress School District officials remain hopeful that they will be able to offer positions to their 23 laid-off teachers by fall. So far, budget cuts have meant the elimination of class-size reduction in third grade and two music teachers, said Linda Bouman, assistant superintendent of human resources and instruction.

“We’re hoping the budget picture will look different at some point before the end of this school year,” she said. “Because of the budget uncertainty, though, these are the steps we have to take at this time.”

The layoff notices came one day after Gov. Gray Davis released his revised state budget proposing to augment funding for primary and secondary public schools next year by more than $400 million over his more austere January plan -- but still cut an estimated at $1.5 billion from schools next year.

In his budget, Davis fully funded the state’s portion for class-size reduction in kindergarten through third grade. Officials in some districts said those funds would save smaller classes that were under the budget knife -- and the teachers who staff the classrooms.

But many other school systems said Davis’ revisions would not forestall the unpleasant task of gutting teaching staffs.

Supt. Jim Roberts of the Foresthill Union School District will have to lay off some of his veteran teachers, including those with a decade of experience, at his two-school district in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. Notices went out to 11 full-time and part-time teachers, and those combined with some cuts last year, would reduce the former teaching staff of 34 about by a third, he said.

Four of the targeted teachers have been recognized by Placer County as Teachers Who Make a Difference, the equivalent of being named Teacher of the Year.

After a decade of effort on assessment and accountability, “it’s disheartening to see our hard work unravel,” he said.

Davis administration officials acknowledged the problems caused by the potential loss of so many teachers.

The officials said the revised budget gives districts maximum flexibility to use their reserve funds to make up for other cuts and keep teachers

“We’ve done everything we could to avoid teacher layoffs,” said Erik Skinner, an assistant secretary for education. “To the extent that any teachers are laid off, it will clearly be disruptive to schools. It will be a stumbling point in terms of continuing our progress in education reforms.”

The pain of layoffs will be felt in urban, suburban and rural districts alike.

The financially stressed Oakland school system, already fighting to remain solvent, sent layoff notices to 400 of its 3,300 teachers.

The Sacramento city school system gave bad news over the last several weeks to 270 of its 3,000 teachers. San Francisco notified 272 of the district’s 4,000 teachers, nurses and counselors, and Oceanside told 112 of 1,200 teachers.

Seventy-eight of Pasadena’s 1,200 teachers were told that they won’t be coming back, but in March, 200 received warnings. Officials there said a lot of the cuts can be attributed to declining enrollment in lower grades at elementary schools.

Other teaching positions were saved because the district instituted a hiring freeze, cut administration positions and offered an early retirement program.

The teaching corps in Garden Grove and Long Beach were preserved by similar cuts.

Garden Grove Unified will not be laying off any teachers, mostly due to its years of frugality and the staffing needs of a growing district, officials said.

Garden Grove’s employee associations have always kept the district’s financial future in mind while bargaining, said district spokesman Alan Trudell. Employees realize that agreeing to smaller raises, even in healthier budget times, increases their job security.

“All parties are aware of the cyclical nature of school funding, that we have robust years and we have lean years,” he said. “The district does not spend money it does not have or expect to have.”

About 60 teachers are retiring and more than 400 students are expected to join the 50,000 already in the district next year, so Garden Grove will likely need to hire more teachers, Trudell said.

“By being frugal and managing our resources well, we’re able to insulate the instructional program from pain as much as possible,” he said.

Times staff writers Cara Mia DiMassa, Errin Haines, Jenifer Ragland, Lee Romney and Kristina Sauerwein contributed to this report.