Seattle Schools rely on seniority Which teachers make the cut? Seattle Schools use seniority-based layoffs to balance the budget, but students and staff voice some concerns.
Seniority at Ballard High School
Rene Ramos
Molly Waldron
Seniority Layoffs
Jesse Hagopian is one of those passionate, dedicated teachers. This was obvious as he talked about the kids he has taught throughout the years. He has spoken out on education funding so that his kids, 10 minutes from the White House as a Teach for America volunteer, wouldn’t have to continue using textbooks from the ‘60s or sit in a classroom that flooded because of a hole in the ceiling. Here in Seattle, he feels it’s ridiculous that students have to wonder who will fund their sixth class period or if they will be able to return each year to the schools they’re familiar with and a staff they trust.
These fears are a reality for many of Seattle Public Schools’ students right now. Many other junior teachers, like Hagopian, received layoff notices last spring as the school district struggled to make up for a $34 million gap in its budget. And again this year, Seattle Public Schools is floundering in the wake of the recuperating economy.
“It’s starting to get a little scary because now we’re in our third year of budget cuts and budget deficits, and it’s going to be really hard to sustain the integrity of our programs,” said Ballard Principal Phil Brockman. “So what do we cut out?”
Students at Ballard High School are one of the many groups that have noticed the changes. In their opinions, the most disconcerting part of the layoff process is that the youngest teachers are the first ones forced to leave, simply because Seattle Public Schools’ teacher contracts specify that layoffs will be based on seniority. For most students, the length of service teachers have under their belts has little to do with how well students can learn. More important is the learning environment teachers create and how compelling they make the Spanish-American War of 1898.
“Younger teachers are bringing new ideas, new clubs, and are full of energy,” said Ballard High School senior Jacob Kutrakun. It’s not too often that high school students become concerned with the intricacies of their teachers’ employment contracts, but the seniority process makes the students feel the district short-changed them by automatically removing the most junior teachers. Now many want to see a shift in Seattle Public Schools’ contracts from layoffs by seniority to cuts based on effectiveness.
“We still have some teachers that I personally don’t think should be teachers right now, and some that we lost last year that I think should have that position,” said junior Matt Magee.
The Ballard students can point to Hagopian, still looking for a position after last year’s cuts, as a prime example of how unfair the seniority system can be. But Hagopian said he doesn’t want to see “finger pointing” and accusations that one teacher should have been laid off instead of another. For him, seniority provides job security to longtime, experienced employees and doesn’t allow for biased layoffs. Instead, he is concerned that teachers have been laid off at all.
When positions are eliminated, it generally means fewer opportunities for students to engage in extracurricular activities or diverse class offerings. Layoffs shuffle staff between schools, filling in the holes where one employee was removed. This can change department dynamics and cause students to suffer from the lack of consistency.
“It was really disruptive of the cohesion of our staff at Madison Middle School, and our students, and our parents,” said Hagopian of the layoffs. “It threw our community into chaos.”
Hagopian believes one of the worst losses at Madison was the school counselor, who was later replaced by an employee from another school. With the bad economy, more kids are coming to school with added domestic challenges—their parents are splitting apart or the mortgage hasn’t been paid, and they’re left without a home.
“To have that one adult who they feel really comfortable with speaking about these difficult issues — who is at school, who is there every year for middle school during that really tumultuous time — is the difference between success and failure for many of these kids.”
Hagopian envisions a world where states fully fund education and layoffs aren’t needed. “It’s an indescribable crime to me, if we can’t meet their commitment to learn with a commitment to fight for the funding they deserve.” He says this means changing the fact that Washington state ranks 44th in the nation in per-pupil spending.
But education analyst Marguerite Roza, from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, stressed that Hagopian’s perspective doesn’t accurately reflect the financial atmosphere of Seattle Public Schools. “We hear all the time in the news locally, the mantra that Washington state spending is in the lowest part nationally of all states … What that misses is that Seattle Public Schools spends more than the average district.”
For 2006-07, the Seattle school district’s per-pupil expenditure was $12,676, while Washington’s average was $10,087. Many education-research institutions are in agreement that instead of grasping for more funding, Seattle Public Schools and the state of Washington could find more effective ways to use the money they already have. If layoffs have to happen, they shouldn’t target the most junior teachers who generally have the lowest salaries. Instead, the district could save money by laying off teachers from different salary ranges, hopefully leaving the most effective teachers in the classrooms.
Just down the street from Franklin High School, at 11 a.m. on a Monday, Hagopian sat with his young son in his lap as he shared his perspective on the state of public schools. Each kiss on his 1-year-old’s head expressed a hope that education will be better off by the time his son reaches schooling age.
Of course, the future is uncertain. Seattle Public Schools is estimating $18 million to $25 million in cuts for next year. With teachers’ union contracts still based on seniority, any union layoffs will mean more junior teachers, ones like Hagopian, will lose their jobs.
Yet layoffs only become a challenge when money is.
“I know that the budget is definitely a problem,” said Kutrakun. “But probably the bigger problem is the way Seattle Public Schools is managing the budget.”