CLEVELAND – School may be just getting started but the work begun by some 344 Cleveland teachers will have to be carried on by someone else. The teachers, who were part of the 643 laid off in the spring because of budget cuts, then hired back for the start of school, will be let go again next month.
“I’m thinking I have these kids we’ve started reading Beowulf, we started reading The Crucible and am I going to have to say goodbye to these kids on October 3rd, I love these kids and these kids love me,” said Andrea Gale who teaches literature at Lincoln West.
She’s also been down this road before. “I was laid off in 2004, I was laid off for a year and at that point I ended up selling my deceased mother’s silver so that I could wait out the layoff.”
The move is frustrating to those teachers because they come with the district having what they say is extra money currently in the budget.
“The district’s sitting on $23 million surplus that should be used now, let’s take care of the problem now and get the teachers in the classroom now,” said David Lockard an 18 year teacher facing lay off.
Back in the spring then interim schools CEO Peter Raskind cut $70 million from the budget to offset a projected $47 million deficit but did so to also cover a deficit projected for next year. A move Raskind said at the time would be tough to swallow now but set new CEO Eric Gordon up to focus on education.
But it’s the education the teachers argue will suffer if class sizes balloon come October 4. “Unfortunately in classes of 50 to 60 to one teacher, survival’s going to come first over education for those kids and that’s a sad reality,” said teacher Justin Hons.
And that Lockard worries will only speed up the exodus of kids. “The parents are going to pull their kids from Cleveland and put them in charter schools and other schools and we’re going to lose them and the districts going to be really hurting,” he said.
The teachers union is currently in contract negotiations with the district. Union President David Quolke says both sides have agreed not to negotiate in the media but it’s clear the outcome of those negotiations will determine how many of those set to laid off again teachers eventually get back to work in the district
