Wearing all black and stickers saying “Come Back to the Table,” a crowd of teachers and support workers flooded the board room of the Lake Elsinore Unified School District Thursday night. Many had to sit in hallways or outside, where chairs and a loudspeaker were set up.
They were there to ask the district to call off the impasse with the teachers union.
“We are wearing black to show solidarity amongst our members in the grievous decision the district has made to stop all negotiations with our union negotiators after only less than an hour of negotiations and after only one offer was presented,” said Lori Edwards, a first-grade teacher at Butterfield Elementary who has worked for the district for seven years and is facing layoff.
Patti Bailey, a California Teachers Association staff member, came to the meeting.
“The teachers have a message, that they want the district to come back to the table,” Bailey said. “During impasse, the district could come back to the table at any point but they haven’t shown they have wanted to.”
Two hours into the meeting, after district management gave fiscal transparency and budget presentations, the teachers got their chance to address the board.
“To be perfectly blunt we know why you are here,” Board President Tom Thomas said.
Steve Dennison, a teacher a Lakeside High School, was the first to approach the board. Public comments were limited to three minutes per person.
“I come before you tonight to say…” Dennison paused, as teachers stood behind him, and his three minutes wound down in silence.
“…That silence accomplishes nothing. Please come back to the table.”
Bill Cavanaugh, a Lake Elsinore Teachers Association bargaining team member, said just at the moment when movement started for the association, the district “pulled the plug” by calling impasse.
“This could be disastrous…the mood, the movement and the effect on students. For the sake of the district, its employees and its students, come back to the table.”
Several others spoke, some teachers crying at the microphone.
“Emotionally, I don’t feel safe. I don’t trust my district. I need your help. Six hours of negotiations and then impasse is called?” said one elementary school teacher.
According to a fiscal transparency report given at the meeting by George Landon, assistant superintendent of fiscal support services, the district has lost $1,407 in funding per student since 2007/2008, leaving it with at $29.4 million funding reduction in 2010/2011.
With an expected $19.9 million shortfall for next year, Landon said the district has made up $9.5 million of it through eliminating five management positions, imposing a 10 percent pay cut on all management, closing Butterfield Elementary, reducing transportation and cutting back on magnet school funding, along with other cost-saving measures.
To make up the remaining $10.7 million needed to balance the budget, district officials said they are looking to the employees. An 8 percent reduction in pay for all employees would save the district $9.6 million, leaving it $1 million away from where it needs to be, according to Landon.
Following the hour-long public comment portion of the meeting, the board called a brief closed session meeting. Many said they hoped the board would decide to end the teachers’ impasse and come back to the table.
“We’ve agreed we are going to stay at impasse,” said Thomas after the closed session. “These aren’t regular negotiations. The reason we left the table is because we need the 8 percent so we can keep the class size reductions and virtually every job. But LETA came back with 3.8 percent. Eight percent means you don’t buy a new car, 100 percent means you lose much more.”
Board member Kim Cousins said statements made by teachers had insinuated the inaccuracy of the district’s fiscal outlook.
“That is very disturbing to me,” Cousins said. “Certainly, if we are at an impasse, an outside agency will come in and view it. And if there are extra funds and the conditions improve, we’ll give it back to our employees.”
“We do want to work together and find solutions, but constantly being told we are dishonest is not the way to go either,” said board member Jeanie Coral.
Legal counsel will now be involved in the negotiations. According to the Lake Elsinore Teachers Association, it could take until May before a hearing is held.
Maggie Avants is the education editor for SWRNN. Reach her at maggie.avants@swrnn.com. Follow SWRNNedu on Twitter!
Loading ...
Can’t buy a new car is the only consequence with an 8 % paycut? Start talking to your teachers more and see that that truly is NOT the only consequence in their lives!!!!!!! I cannot remember the last time I bought a new car!
Ok so do not cut that 8% and then what? Where does the rest of the millions they need come from? The biggest portion of any district’s budget is teacher’s salaries so for all the math teachers out there, how can a district cut millions without touching the teachers? The classified doesn’t make that much money individually or in aggregate. Management is not numerous enough to make that much money in aggregate but they have taken bigger cuts than what is being asked of the teachers. It seems the common strategy amongst the unions is to accuse the board and management of dishonesty. As the board here and the article states that the amount of money per student has been reduced significantly. The State did that. The State has devalued the cost of educating students. The State is to blame not the local school board. If the history books are opened you will see that new programs that cost money are almost exclusively started by those with credentials. Many programs fail but some remain. So who is to blame for the way money is spent in a district? without something to vote on the board is worthless. Who gives them agenda items to vote on? Who creates those items? Teachers do. Teachers push for new and innovative programs and those cost money. To say that anyone makes too much money to run a district is to put the blame where it does not belong. It belongs at the State level only. We need to spend more money to properly educate our kids not less and the only people responsible for taking money away are the State legislators including the Governor.
Once again, the number of teachers is needed to accomodate the number of students. Why is a school district even created? To TEACH students, which is why we need TEACHERS. The salaries have to be competitive for the amount of requirement that are set to be a teacher.
What has happened now is that the teachers feel disrespected by the people who are supposed to be leading this district. We understand that there is a deficit, but we do the grunt work and our names go next to those scores. Show more respect.
100% agreed for all the instances where teachers are working at full capacity. When teachers become bittered by the processes forced down their throats they begin to stop giving their all. How do I know? I have noticed this in my teachers from high school on, I asked them why. My entire family save for myself are teachers. I asked them. I asked teachers in a few local school districts and they all tell me the same things. Teacher complacency is something that the districts need to do more about. Remedy the cause. Give teachers the chance to be teachers and not just curriculum guide following robots. We always see the movie about Jaime Escalante as an example of great teaching. Would a teacher pass their evaluations teaching like that? In many cases no. The Principals are beholden to the test scores and they are too gun shy to allow innovation in teaching. Standards have created substandard conditions. Standards are important but over-standardizing something is only going to reach the average and that leaves out the gifted and the special needs children. They are all mixed together so what can we expect to happen to both test scores and teacher’s ability to go through these motions year in and year out?
Never mentioned in this Article…Why?????
On March 11, 2010 our Superintendent and School Board President used profanity in a public forum directed at myself and fellow unit members. I find this verbal abuse unacceptable, unnecessary and harmful. I was further humiliated and harassed when I left the board room by the School Board President’s jeers and taunts as I exited. As I walked to my car in complete shock, I was further humiliated by listening to the angry tirade continuing from LEUSD leadership blasting over the P.A. system in the School District parking lot.
LEUSD should refrain from all forms of harassment directed any unit members (teachers); including yelling, visual or physical posturing, use of profanity etc…Teachers are human beings and deserve to be treated like human beings.
[...] Lake Elsinore teachers plead against impasse [...]