Test of character for teachers
A day in the life of your typical K-12 public educator can produce its fair share of headaches, as with any job, but these days it’s the stress that teachers face outside of the classroom that is the true test of character.
In the past three years, California has seen drastic cuts in funding to public education that has resulted in the mass layoffs of thousands of school teachers across the state. Receiving a “pink slip”-a notice that they may not have a faculty position the following year- has become common place in non-tenured teacher’s lives.
“I was just talking to another teacher at lunch today about our unpacked boxes and how we never took anything out of them yet this year. I know it’s coming [pink slip], and it takes too much energy to unpack and pack our things, so we have a lot of boxes that we’ve left unpacked, just in case next year is the year that they finally don’t want us back,” Bud Carson middle school teacher Jasmine Kiamco said.
Kiamco, an eighth grade English teacher of five years in the Hawthorne School District, has received a pink slip the past three years. In 2008, the first year of the California state budget crisis, roughly 10,000 teachers received pink slips and an estimated 5,000 ultimately lost their jobs according to the California Department of Education. Schools Chief Jack O’Connell issued a statement in 2008 to address the dramatic layoffs.
“School districts up and down this state are sending out pink slips to tens of thousands of hard-working, dedicated teachers, administrators, and school staff. Cuts of this magnitude will have devastating effects in our classrooms across the state,” O’Connell said.
Just a year later, O’Connell’s statement now seemed like a prophecy. In 2009, 23,000 pink slips were issued and over 16,000 teachers lost their jobs, a staggering number compared to just the previous year.
One consequence of the large cuts to teacher jobs has been increased class sizes. The U.S. Department of Education estimated that in 2010, the national average class size was 25. Kiamco currently has 39 students in her English classes.
“I get nervous, I’ve never had this many kids before. There’s barely enough space to house all of them, sometimes I think that these classrooms weren’t made to accommodate this many students,” Kiamco said.
It’s no different in the Long Beach Unified School District. Mark Hankinson, a ninth grade teacher in his eighth year at Cabrillo High School says that he has upwards of 35 to 37 students in his English classes and anywhere from 37 to 38 students in his History classes. Hankinson, who has been a public school teacher since 1988 quips that as overwhelming as it gets, ‘what’s one more kid’?
“I’m already overwhelmed, I’ve got 35-plus kids in every class I’m not going to notice one more kid. Heck they might as well just give me a handful more in each class,” Hankinson joked.
For veteran teachers like Hankinson, he can afford to laugh the stresses off. He, along with many other tenured teachers is protected by the union. In stark contrast to Kiamco, who is considered a “temporary teacher”, Hankinson’s job is for all intents and purposes safe. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel his colleagues’ angst or that he doesn’t care for their livelihoods. He, along with a majority of the union (90%) voted last year to take five furlough days in an effort to save as many teacher jobs as possible. A furlough day is a mandated leave of absence, which results in the employee not getting paid. Hankinson estimates that there were potentially 1,000 jobs on the line and that the furlough days saved 200 to 300 of them.
One would think that these teachers ought to be on their toes and to make sure they dot their i’s and cross their t’s with jobs literally up in the air. Unfortunately in California, and several other states as well, it is law that teachers are laid off by the policy known as “last in, first out” meaning teachers are let go by seniority. A brilliant new teacher in essence, could be let go in favor of a lesser quality teacher simply due to who has been teaching longer. This may have less than favorable results in many instances.
“Every three years, we’re accredited. Now, we know pretty much two years in advance the exact date these guys are coming to review us. So we’re prepared. This year when they came in to inspect, one of the teachers down the hall was playing ‘Meet the Parents’, just incredible. He’s been working here a while, and the only reason he was embarrassed was because when they came to his class a funny scene in the movie wasn’t playing. It’s shocking. On the other hand I know this other gal, just an incredible teacher; she’s young and so passionate. She’s worried sick about next year,” Hankinson said.
Virtually the only other solution to maintaining teacher positions is for school districts to tap into their emergency funds. Kiamco’s district for instance has been very efficient, actually over-saving in recent years creating somewhat of a surplus. This has saved everyone in her district, as nobody has actually been laid off as of yet due to the state budget crisis. Teachers have been shuffled around and transferred to different grades, but the Hawthorne District has yet to suffer any casualties. This however, may soon be changing.
“Even though nobody has been cut yet, I feel like it’s getting worse and worse. More and more of us are getting pink slips and there are no more resources to tap into. I was told it’s going to be a bloodbath next year,” Kiamco said.
With job security constantly hanging in the balance, and mounting class room sizes, the stress on teachers can reach breaking points. This year Kiamco’s district also voted on five furlough days as well as taking a mandatory pay cut. Mix raising children and a family into the equation, and the problem becomes even more fragile.
“Some of my co-workers always complain to me about not being able to take vacations, or shopping for themselves or not being able to buy a house. While for me, I have two kids of my own so it’s kind of uneasy for us all. It’s just the reality we’re facing right now, the state budget is out of control,” Kiamco said.
Jaime Gendrano, a first grade teacher of nine years at Riviera elementary, echoes Kiamco’s sentiments.
“It’s unfortunate that the budget for education continues to get cut, but being that it makes up a large portion of the entire state budget, they have no choice,” Gendrano said.
According to the California Department of Finance, K-12 education makes up 52 to 55 percent of the state general fund budget. The state currently faces a $3.7 million budget gap, and Gov. Jerry Brown has designed a proposal that would raise taxes on individuals making more than $250,000 in lieu of slashing more of the education budget.
“The stark truth is that without new revenues, we will have no other choice but to make deeper and more damaging cuts to schools and universities,” Brown recently said.
California has already slashed $4 billion from higher education in the 2011-2012 budget. Kiamco’s fear of an ensuing bloodbath may become a reality where not only teachers are affected but students as well.
“As it is, my kids come into ninth grade completely underprepared, every single year. We try to have assessments, tests; none of it seems to be helping. When I teach them the basics, I mean the bare-bones, it is news to them. These kids need more individual attention, a lot of their parents didn’t even finish high school,” said Hankinson.
The stress and pressure from both the intensified expectations in the classroom combined with the insecurity of knowing if they’ll even have a job has forced some teachers out of the teaching field for good. Gendrano claims that several teachers at her school moved to different states or explored new careers.
“For us temporary teachers, there are no guarantees. When I used to be a part of the union, I had some protection. If I was close to getting laid off, I was granted a hearing first and that usually resulted in me keeping my job. Some of my co-workers just couldn’t take it anymore, they couldn’t handle the insecurity,” Gendrano said.
Other issues that have resulted from the state budget crisis have been teachers being forced to move to new grades on extremely short notice due to teachers being let go. Or some teachers only receive half-year contracts with no guarantee they’ll have a job in the second half of the school year.
“The stress load is already so high, and then to top it off, some of us have been moved to grades we’ve never taught before on no notice. There’s no way we can prepare for that, and others who are brought back, they might not even make it through the year. I can’t imagine how a mid-year cut would go with the kids. These are our future doctors,” Gendrano said.
With the impending budget cuts to education, it looks as if teacher cuts may continue. More souls will be searched and characters tested.
“Teaching is a tough gig, even on the perfect day it’s a tough gig. I’ve seen incredible things and I’ve seen miserable things. We’re not in control ever, it’s how the system’s always been,” Hankinson said.
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