SchoolBd2/24/09

Good evening President Wong, School Board members, Superintendent Melendez, staff, parents, community members, and fellow APT and CSEA brothers and sisters.

As I rise to speak tonight I do so with great sadness, disappointment, and indignation in the wake of California’s disastrous education budget and the subsequent decision by PUSD administration and this Board (5-0) to approve the resolution for preliminary lay-off notices to over 600 of our members which is more than a third of our membership.   This extremely early and reckless decision is viewed by APT, as you will hear tonight from many, many of our teachers and student support staff, as a breach of trust between administration and the members of APT.

My own story of my childhood illustrates the power a teacher can have to transform and help ground a child’s life, especially youngsters who may not come from stable or functional homes.  I myself lived with parents who, while doing the best they could, were very unhealthy individuals and subjected both my sister and I to fear, abuse, and uncertainty about the future of our family.  As a kid the one place I felt safe, cared for, challenged and accepted was my school, by my teachers.  The pain I suffered at home, sometimes nightly, was relieved during the day by the fact that my teachers were there for me like a ROCK; solid ground on which I could balance and gain the strength to come back the next day.  I know that is one of the reasons I became a teacher and decided to work with young children here in Pomona.  I felt I had a real connection that I could offer students whose story was similar to mine. I too could serve as that ROCK just like those teachers in my life when I was a young student.   Many of our teachers play a similar role in the lives of their students here across our district.  However, teachers who received lay-off notices and have had their worlds turned upside down, not knowing whether they might lose their homes, how to keep food on the table, or how they will get another job when so many people are being impacted by the budget crisis.   I know they are not the ROCK that they have been for their students only a few weeks ago.  I am VERY concerned for our students who count on their teachers each and everyday to be there for them in these tough times.

The decision to shotgun blast more than one in three of our APT brothers and sisters with a layoff notice will not go unanswered.  We will call to account those responsible for this reckless and unnecessarily early action that has inflicted so much pain, panic, and anger throughout our membership.  NO OTHER SCHOOL DISTRICT AROUND IS DOING WHAT PUSD HAS DONE TO ITS EMPLOYEES!  In fact when you read the papers about what other Districts are doing in regard to the budget cuts, what you read are words like “mulls over”, “considers”, “contemplates”, “prepares for”. Many of these districts including Chino, Covina, Chaffey, Ontario and others have STILL not issued lay-off notices, and most will not until much closer to the statutory deadline of March 15. Interestingly, Montebello Unified School District, where our Superintendent got her start, has decided to approach the issue of State Budget cuts very differently.  There, the Superintendent, head of Personnel, the School Board President, the Association President, and its Executive Director are visiting school together, talking with members and teachers delivering the message that they are doing all they can to avoid lay-offs.  In Montebello they are waiting as long as they can until they know more about the new State budget, how the Federal Stimulus package will help offset some of the cuts districts face as well as encouraging folks to consider an early retirement offer.  In Montebello they are actually standing “shoulder to shoulder”.  Here in Pomona, I as Association President was shocked and blindsided by the decision to move forward with the layoffs more than a month early.  In fact we had agreed to sit down with District administration to talk and listen even though our contract is CLOSED through January 2010.  The decision was never shared with us as we “talked” and I, as President, never received a call from the Superintendent to let me know anything was coming.  Yet we are asked to stand “shoulder to shoulder”.  In fact many teachers and educators attended the meeting on February 10, where this Board made the fateful 5-0 decision.  At that time we asked that you wait, take time and delay the decision until the politicians in Sacramento had at least passed a budget and we had some real DATA.  We pleaded that this would cause harm to our students and that we need to take time and make sure that we handled this situation with caution and care.  What we heard from both this Board and District Administration was the party line: that we could not wait, that “our backs are against the wall”, and that we must to do this early to give our employees “ample notice”.   The Office of Administrative Hearings had already set the hearing dates, as they do every year when there are lay-offs, between March 30 and April 30, so the argument that your “backs were against the wall” and that you cared so much you wanted to give “advanced notice” are bogus! This bogus  excuse was clearly illustrated when some of our members, being proactive, went to site administration to ask for letters of recommendation.  Those members were told by site administrators they had been directed not to write a single letter, according to a directive they received from District Administration.  So much for “ample notice”, and for what, so our members could worry and stress for an extra month or maybe so the teachers would help clean up the chaos created by the district?  Outrageous!

Another fiction that is being propagated by Administration is that PUSD took a risk last year not laying-off permanent employees and actually gave a raise, while many other Districts laid off teachers at least according to the party line. This too is inaccurate.  If we look at the surrounding districts in this area from both Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties….once again using actual DATA….we can see that 31 out of 38 districts, did NOT lay off employees, and in fact 31 gave raises to their employees, with 22 districts settling for MORE than the raise Pomona finally accepted after a long battle at the table.

APT members are now familiar with the words Respect, Results, Responsibility, and Shared leadership from administration. We all know that the former administration was very unpopular and caused much mistrust because of a genuine lack of transparency, openness, and integrity about the way it conducted business.  Many people, both APT members and the community expressed excitement, a sense of empowerment and hope that things would finally be different.  There was a sense that teachers would have a voice with our new administration. They held hope that bad principals would finally have consequences for their THUG like behavior.  But words without actions to back them up inevitably begins to erode trust until you reach a point where there is no confidence that the person in question can be counted on to do what they say.  Unfortunately, many of my members have now expressed these very feelings about PUSD administration.  Some have suggested a new set of R’s: Rhetoric, RIFs, and Reckoning. I must say I am deeply saddened and disappointed when I hear these feelings being expressed by our teachers.  With the breach of trust that has occurred it will be difficult to sit down and work TOGETHER with the district to find solutions to our collective problems as they relate to the budgets cuts. This mistrust is further intensified by a 10 year history of creative budget projections which regularly project ending balances that have been off by as much as 10 million dollars.  Indeed we need to find some solutions, I do not see that happening when the district has been unwilling to take responsibility for the unnecessarily early, reckless and sloppy handling of the lay-off notices to over 600 valued employees.

APT has been working hard on behalf of its members to put things in place so that they will not go through this painful process alone.  Our students are still counting on us to be there for them even through this difficult time.  Many of the families we serve are also being hit hard by this economic meltdown.  I know morale is at an all time low, and that many are scared about what might happen with their jobs. We have urged our members to continue to do the best they can for our students while hanging on to their sanity through this crisis.   Tonight I urge you as Board Members and administrators to listen with an open mind, an open heart and with understanding as you hear the stories from teachers, counselors, nurses, psychologists, pupil support staff, parents, and other association leaders.  Please listen carefully, reserving your judgment, as to how your decision has impacted their lives and the lives of our students.