Dallas school district delays layoffs (Hundreds of teachers to be laid off Friday)

Source: Houston Chronicle

DALLAS — Hundreds of teachers in Dallas were scheduled to be laid off Thursday, a process that was delayed because the cash-strapped school district needed another day to review exactly how those teachers would be selected.

After meeting with principals who questioned the details of the layoff procedures, Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said in a statement e-mailed late Tuesday evening that the district needs another day to review its plan.

"I want to make certain that we give ourselves time to resolve the issues that (principals) have raised," the statement said. "We are committed to paying close attention to our standards of service at each campus."

DISD struggles with an estimated $84 million budget deficit. Years of accounting, budgeting and hiring errors at the district led to a deficit that's increasing by about a $1 million each week, the district said last month.

A draft list of the planned layoffs obtained by The Dallas Morning News was time stamped for Tuesday morning, before principles questioned it. Most positions listed were uncertified elementary school teachers, almost all of whom were hired within the last three years. Several dozen high school-level English and history teachers and 21 counselors at various schools were also listed.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6060146.html

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Silly me, I thought that I had a "safe" job. There may be no "safe" jobs in this economy.

Let's just double-up those classes.

the bosses make mistakes, and everyone but them pay for it...

i'm guessing none?

Not likely, but Friday night football is a family affair here and its what a lot of towns DO on Friday nights. Not my cut of tea(Manhattan's on the rocks start promptly at 5PM on Friday), but that's the way it is.

Sure, it's fine to have stupid kids who don't even know English, but preventing kids from becoming stupid jocks is a SIN!

This has zero to do with the economy as that would make actual sense. Hinojosa is a moron who should have never been in a position of power.

here in Houston. Our hearts go out to you and all the kids. In the middle of the year-what a clusterfuck.

of the administration. Anyone who knows the DISD knows that it has always been a stinkhole of corruption and cronyism. The FBI should set up shop in the main offices. How many 'administrators' will be fired?

winston61!

scary times.

about education? This is not a problem we can solve by 'throwing money at it'. What tired bullshit. You notice the warmongers never have any trouble throwing tons of cash at the military industrial complex. A week does not go by without a report in the Star Telegram about the cluster fuck that is the V22 Osprey program. What's the solution to those problems? Why, let's throw a few more tons of taxpayer cash at it. We need educational infrastructure! Well, fuck you teacher! We gotta buy more guns and bombs and kill a few more civilians. Oh by the way, did we mention we're gonna escalate the war in Afghanistan? Fuck you taxpayers!

Why is it that only social ills can't be
cured by "throwing money at them"?

They pitch money to the fields that
subsidize THEM.

cut the money spent on education by half and take a page from the Japanese. Strict testing throughout each student's school years which determine which schools they will attend. The best students go the junior high schools, high schools, etc. Also, we should place a special focus on math and science as they do.

making silk purses out of sow's ears.

and one I haven't heard in a long time.

They expect us to take chicken shit and turn it into chicken salad.:rant: I've had a rough day today!

I have one every day but some are tougher than usual.

I don't think testing is necessary or fair. It's not fair in the sense that some kids are better test-takers than others; some kids have got more going for them at home; some kids have language barriers. There are a million different variables. And what do you do with my kid, who can read and comprehend any book appropriate for high school, yet tests poorly? Or what about me, a fairly bright man who was reading at a college level in the third grade yet was in special ed math all the way through school? Testing is a multiple choice answer, but life is an essay question.

That having been said, testing students to see which schools they qualify for isn't really necessary (auditions excepted). We could just ask the kids and their parents. I know that most of my students aren't going to college, AND THAT'S OKAY. The world needs a hell of a lot more auto mechanics than it does engineers, and while an MBA might be important to the operation of a chain of grocery stores, somebody has to hose down the Boston leaf lettuce every night. High expectations are important, but so is pragmatism, and not every kid is the same.

We should offer far more vocational programs than we do now. Sadly, in times of budget shortfalls, these are usually the first to go. We should also agree, on a local or state level, to a bare minimum of what constitutes a bare minimum of high school learning, then differentiate between diplomas: college prep, honors, regular. I realize that most high school already do this, but we keep raising the bar and then wonder why more kids are failing than ever before.

Finally, and to my most politically incorrect point, we should let kids drop out. High schools are filled with children who don't care and the children of parents who don't care, and perhaps the onus of responsibility should be on the family to decide what's best for them. This option is much more palatable in a climate wherein alternative and adult high schools are easily available.

Other things that would help:
1. Health care. Easily the most important.
2. Expanded ELL programs for both students and their parents.
3. Longer school day, including the arts and PE. Kids need both to thrive, and they're the first to go.
4. Less bureaucracy. It gets worse every year. Students, families, teachers, and even the administrators are so stymied by a layer of rules and regs that no one can do their jobs properly anymore.
5. Stop listening to politicians, and start listening to the teacher's union. When you have a question about medicine, do you go to your assemblywoman or to your doctor?

Testing works although there are exceptions. The Japanese basically base your whole career path off of testing and it has worked phenomenally for them. Their students are truly driven to succeed. Those that don't get into the best high schools are routed toward education that better suits them. This may work very well in the US and may be the direction that we have to go.

A bad plan, but a plan none the less. There are cultural, economic, and societal reasons why Japan can do what it does. Taking those strictly Japanese solutions to strictly Japanese problems would not translate well, or at all, here in the US.

We really should be spending more money on education, we've got schoolhouses bursting at the seams, underpaid teachers, poor facilities and equipment, all of which need to be corrected.

As far as strict testing goes, the pedagogy simply doesn't back your contention. What you're setting up is a two tiered, biased, elitist education system based solely on standardized tests. I suggest that you go research all of the huge problems with standardized tests before you recommend basing an entire school system on them.

on education, get 100 times better results and our solution should be to spend more money??? Let's face it, many students will never be star performers, many aren't made for traditional college either. Sticking them in schools with students who have a good shot at college isn't fair to the college-bound student or the non-college bound one. Its a waste of both their times.

Japan spends about a thousand dollars less per capita than the US does. Meanwhile, while they have adequate, or even exempelary facilities, many of our schools have to deal with sub-standard schools, aged equipment, and an educational infrastructure that is disintigrating. Furthermore, Japan puts money where it really matters, investing in high quality teachers with higher salaries. Treating, and paying a teacher like you should any other professional means that you get higher quality teachers. Instead, we have a system here in the US where the voters get to control the pay of teachers, and of course they're going to keep that pay, and their taxes, as low as possible. Thus you wind up with a bunch of average, or below average teachers.

Furthermore, you can't apply the economics of scale here. It simply isn't going to be a simple geometric progression, but rather an exponetial one.

Your contention that many students won't be star performers is true, however your solution is cold hearted at best. First of all, how are you going to determine who goes and who stays? By standardized tests?:rofl: Like I said earlier, go check out the research and analysis of standardized tests, and tell me if you really think they'll work. Furthermore, tossing over students, no matter their academic ability, is flat out wrong. All you'll be doing is creating a burden on society, glutting the market with cheap, unskilled labor, and creating a huge underclass.

Oh, and as far as being unfair to the college bound student, gee, I was one of the bright ones, and I and everybody else made it through without any problems from those awful non-college bound students. Sorry, but your carping on this simply makes you sound like an elitist. But then again, your entire exchange here gives that impression.

We're a democratic country, at least nominally, we should have a democratic school system. One that provides teachers, students and administrators with the tools they need, and the pay they deserve, in order to better educate everybody, not just the elite few.

You may want to read this to see how it SHOULD be in the US. Excuses are not going to help any children.

http://members.tripod.com/h_javora/jed6.htm

Idiots on the school board make a catastrophic mistake because they can't add. How ironic. And now, the kids are going to suffer and get less qualified teachers with lesser pay to make the budget.

This is so reminiscent of the staggering downward trend of our American educational system. Un-freakin-believable. :grr:

...hey! Can the Dallas Texas school board get a bailout too?!?!

...I guess not... :-(

40 or 50 in a class.

I'm teaching 28 in one class and it's not easy. Plus, the job never ends with all the lesson planning, papers to correct and parent contacts. Sorry about this. :cry:

Not long ago I was working toward an education degree in OR, but there were (and still are) few jobs for new teachers. I know that the big college here graduated 200 new Education MA's three years back, when there were only 20 or so jobs in-state. Texas sent recruiters in offering big relocation bonuses for people who would go and teach there...

As said, I hope no one I know is stranded jobless halfway across the country. It really sucks that education is one risky and thankless field nowadays.

GET THE GUBMINT OFF ARE BACKS! We don't need no edumacation!

Dallas principals, teachers and parent groups tried to restore a sense of normalcy to their schools Friday, a day after the district laid off 415 educators in an effort to avoid a looming budget deficit.

They were helped by the fact that classes were in session for only a half-day – teachers were required to attend professional development workshops Friday afternoon.

The most immediate challenge: sorting out the schedules and class loads of some 460 teachers who were shuffled into new jobs Thursday, while also patching up the class schedules of thousands of students. That process started immediately at Bryan Adams High School.

"It's an unbelievable task getting those schedules changed in 1 ½ days," said Principal Cindy Goodsell, who noted it takes weeks to set up the school's master schedule for teachers each year. By day's end Friday, the school had successfully fixed the schedules of about 700 students, but still had many more to do.

Bryan Adams gained three new teachers through transfers, but lost 10 others through layoffs, early retirements or transfers to other schools. Ms. Goodsell said she and some of the school's staff would be at work today to allow the teachers to come get their rooms ready.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/101808dnmetlayoffsfolo.36e3525.html

I'm really worried about the future of this country.

Idiots.

This story makes me furious. I'm here in the DFW area & even though I don't have children, it makes my blood boil.

:grr: