More than 1,000 local teachers could be spared the ignominy of
receiving a dreaded pink slip this March. Legislation to be
introduced shortly by local Assemblyman Marty Block proposes
extending the legal deadline for issuing layoff notices for
teachers from March 15 to May 15.

The later deadline would allow the district to have a better
idea of the state budget before deciding how many staff must be
issued pink slips. For the last few years, tight budgets have led
the district to issue hundreds of layoff notices before March 15,
only to rescind most of those notices a few months
later as the state’s education budget crystallized.

The March 15 rule exists to give teachers more time to prepare
for being laid off, but the rounds of pink slips, and their
subsequent rescissions, have been blamed for causing unnecessary
stress for local teachers, parents and schools in general.

The legislation comes after Block was contacted by both San
Diego Unified School District officials and officials from the
local teachers union, the San Diego Education Association.

Last week, the SDEA challenged the district to stand up to a
“broken budget system.” The union urged the district to refuse to
participate in the budget process, and said it should use its clout
to change the budget system so mass layoff notices can be
avoided.

The district responded by calling on the SDEA to join with it in asking
legislators to introduce emergency legislation to change the March
15 deadline, which is enshrined in state law. Only by changing that
deadline would the district truly be able to avoid issuing mass
layoff notices, the district argued.

Today, the union officially endorsed that approach. Here’s a
snippet from
a press release the SDEA put out a couple hours ago:

The current process requires the District to “budget in
the dark,” since the state budget isn’t finalized until June. Last
year the District issued more than 1,300 layoff notices in order to
receive budget approval from the County Office of Education. More
than 90 percent of those layoffs were eventually rescinded by the
District once accurate data was available.

Although just a temporary solution, extending the layoff-notice
deadline for this year is an important quick fix to loosen the
restrictions placed on the District’s ability to issue an accurate
budget.

Final details of the legislation aren’t yet clear. The SDEA
press release states that the union would only support changing the
deadline for the San Diego Unified School District, and only on a
temporary basis.

District Chief of Staff Bernie Rhinerson said the cooperation by
the district and the union represents a warming in the relationship
between the two sides, which has been frosty for the last few years.

“Yeah, that’s new,” Rhinerson said. “I think it’s very
significant that we can work on this issue together.”

Rhinerson cautioned that the legislation may not pass easily.
And he stressed that changing the deadline won’t affect the
underlying financial crisis facing the district.

The district is estimating a $124 million budget deficit next
year. That might change by $10 million or $15 million, Rhinerson
said, but the deficit’s not going to disappear. The union has
questioned that deficit, saying it’s actually much lower than the
district claims.

For teachers, there’s also a flipside to changing the March 15
deadline.

If the state’s budget turns out to be as bad as forecast, the
district may still need to issue layoff notices to hundreds of
teachers in May. Those teachers will then have less time to prepare
for potentially losing their jobs.

But if, as has happened in past years, the state’s budget turns
out to be better than expected, the new legislation will avoid the
landslide of pink slips for at least one year.

Will Carless is an investigative reporter at
voiceofsandiego.org currently focused on local education. You can
reach him at will.carless@voiceofsandiego.org or
619.550.5670.

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Article source: http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/education/article_dd247108-5777-11e1-81c3-0019bb2963f4.html

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