Hundreds of people
stood and cheered last Thursday when the School Board announced that
Superintendent Clifford Janey will be leaving.
Cheered? I just
wanted to throw up.
Should Janey leave? Probably. Is this the right time? I
don’t know. One thing’s for sure, though: this isn’t the right way.
It may have made some School Board members feel good to
throw stones at Janey over the past few weeks. It may have made some people
feel good to humiliate him last week with their cheers. But as teachers-union
president Adam Urbanski says, “Once a decision has been made to let someone go,
it’s not too much to ask to let him go with dignity.”
Six of the seven School Board members decided that Janey
should leave. They hope this will defuse the emotions surrounding the budget
problems. Maybe it will. But removing Janey won’t solve all the problems. And
it may compound some of them. For starters:
The School Board has to quickly hire an interim
superintendent --- and start looking for Janey’s replacement. This is a very
tricky time for that work. Whatever budget the board adopts this month, it will
be only a piece of paper. The interim superintendent will have to implement
that budget --- move staff around, guide schools through the loss of librarians
and counselors (if that’s what we’re facing). And help schools deal with the
influx of students from programs like Josh Lofton and SHAPE, which serve
students with some of the most intense needs.
The interim will have to lobby for more state aid. And
supervise budget adjustments when we learn what that state aid will be. And
start preparing the next budget.
The interim will have to hire new administrators.
Forty-eight people --- including some of the district’s most highly respected
principals --- are retiring this year. That’s 17 percent of the district’s
administrative staff.
And that doesn’t count the administrators who will lose
their jobs to budget cuts – somewhere between 20 and 70, administrators-union
president Dick Stear estimates. While those cuts will save money, the district
will be losing history --- the knowledge those administrators have --- at a
time when a new superintendent will need that history.
The district will also have to hire some new teachers;
how many isn’t yet known. The budget crisis is forcing layoffs of more than
500, but there’ll undoubtedly be some vacancies in positions that aren’t being
abolished. Urbanski guesses maybe 150.
Who hires the teachers? The district’s human relations
department --- which, says Urbanski, is losing three of its top people to
layoffs.
And Patti Malgieri, head of the Center for Governmental
Research and a close observer of the school district, points out one of the
biggest challenges for the interim: helping the district “re-establish
financial credibility.”
Then there’s morale, which Dick Stear calls “terrible.” “It has never been worse,” says
Urbanski, “in Central Office or in the schools.”
Part of the morale problem, no doubt, is due to the
looming budget cuts. It’s hard to be upbeat if you’re afraid you’re going to
lose your job. Or if you’re keeping your job, but your working conditions will
get worse: class sizes will grow, and you’ll take on the role of librarian or
guidance counselor. And you’ll be getting a new class of students who are
falling behind and didn’t have the benefit of summer school.
But my sense is that the attacks on the school district
and its personnel --- from the public, from other elected officials, from
business leaders, even from some School Board members --- are also taking a
toll.
The School Board needs to rally the community around the
school district --- around teachers and administrators and service workers.
These are the public’s employees, for
pete’s sake: public servants in some of the nation’s toughest (and most
underpaid) careers. We don’t encourage them to do a good job --- we can’t
encourage them to care for our children --- if we dump on them all the time.
There are tough days ahead, and not just over the next
few months. Dick Stear thinks this year’s state clampdown on school spending
may be just the beginning.
Adam Urbanski’s assessment of the district at this time:
“We’re in big trouble.”
“Doyle fears ‘devastating effect’ if graduates are not
employable,” read the headline on a recent Democrat
and Chronicle article.
“If we can’t get our work force out of the city school
kids,” County Exec Jack Doyle told the D&C,
“we’re going to be hurting.”
You betcha.
But Doyle wasn’t issuing a community call to action. He
wasn’t suggesting that state legislators act immediately to solve the City
School District’s budget crisis. He wasn’t urging a regional program to tackle
the concentrated poverty of the school district. He wasn’t offering to give the
school district more of the county sales tax.
No indeed. He was yelling at the School Board --- and at
his favorite demon, Mayor Bill Johnson. Shape up! Shape up!
The district absolutely must get its financial act
together. And no, money isn’t the ultimate solution. Frankly, we’re asking the
district to do an impossible job: to overcome the effects of concentrated
poverty.
But the district does
have to have enough money to pay teachers competitive salaries. It does have to have enough money to
provide the programs and services that the state and federal government mandate
but don’t pay for.
It does have to
have enough money to train its teachers, to keep its buildings in decent shape,
to provide crossing guards. And some of us believe it needs enough money for
things like elementary-school librarians, art and music classes, sports, unique
programs like Wilson International Baccalaureate, AP classes, School of the
Arts, School Without Walls.
Some of us believe the district needs to be able to
reduce class sizes, pay aides --- do whatever it can to cope with the
catastrophic effects of concentrated poverty and racial segregation.
Money won’t make those problems go away. But without
adequate funding, the problems will be worse. Much worse.
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