Union County Vo-Tech students make emotional plea for teachers' jobs (PHOTOS)

Crowds of Union County Vocational-Technical School students, teachers and parents gather in support of non-tenured teachers whose contracts were not renewed at a Board of Education meeting on Monday, May 4, 2015. (Katie Lannan | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

http://www.nj.com/union/index.ssf/2015/05/union_county_vo-tech_students_pack_meeting_to_plea.html

By Katie Lannan

SCOTCH PLAINS — The 44 Union County Vocational Technical Schools teachers who got pink slips last week included a single mother who had just bought a house, a woman who recently suffered a stroke and heart failure and one new hire who had yet to see his first day of school.

Those three educators were among the district's non-tenured faculty, all of whom were recently informed their contracts would not be renewed next year, baking teacher and union representative Ted DiIorio told Board of Education members at a packed meeting Monday night.

"These are real people, and I know you know they're real people," DiIorio said. "You see them everyday. They have real lives."

The board voted Monday to renew the contracts of tenured personnel, one supervisor eligible for tenure and non-tenured administrative and support staff — but not the district's non-tenured teachers, who make up about 30 percent of the teaching staff.

FULL story at link.