Teachers at a South Side vocational school last week accused Chicago Public School administrators of creating chaos for students by shifting teachers around weeks into the school year and preventing students from taking courses in their majors.
Carol Caref, a math teacher at the Chicago Vocational Career Academy on the city’s southeast side, told Chicago Board of Education members that the late-September layoffs forced the school to shut down three of its areas of study.
As a result, 130 juniors and seniors in the sheet metal, radio and TV, and graphic arts majors were uprooted and randomly assigned to other areas of study, she said.
“Your actions necessitated massive, complicated program changes in the school, moving students and teachers from this class to that to fill every available spot, whether or not doing so was in the students’ best interest,” Caref told the board.
Yvonne Nelson, also a teacher at CVCA, said one of her senior students who had been studying graphics was quickly shuffled into the culinary arts program when her teacher was laid off.
It was the second time that student had been moved out of her major in the past three years, Nelson said, and she will now be at a disadvantage when she applies for college scholarships and admission.
Last-minute reorganizations like these are the effect of “20th-day” layoffs, a common yearly occurrence in Chicago Public Schools. As schools’ enrollment numbers fluctuate during the first weeks of the school year, district administrators have 20 days to lay off teachers or move them to other schools with higher numbers.
Such changes can be especially disruptive to students in low-income, predominantly African-American communities like CVCA’s, said Betty Porter, a member of the school’s local school council and mother of three CVCA graduates.
“You see everything these kids are up against,” said Porter, referring to the frequent reports of violence among CPS students. “When something like this happens, these children get the feeling that ‘ain’t nobody out there that cares about me.’”
But Ron Huberman, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, said little can be done to fix the problem. With CPS facing a massive $700 million deficit next year, the district cannot afford to keep teachers with small classrooms on the payroll, he said.
“I think I can speak for everyone in this room saying we would love to not cut positions at all on the 20th day,” Huberman told people gathered for the public participation portion of the board meeting. “But what is two or three positions across 600 (CPS) schools becomes a very big number in totality.”
Huberman said the district is working to make these staffing changes earlier in the school year in order to minimize disruption to students. This year, he said, last-minute hires in schools with increased enrollment were made by the fifth day of school, instead of the 20th.
Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart said the 20th-day layoffs are a problem across the district, but it is “mainly in the schools in high-need areas, where you want stability, where (CPS) create(s) the most instability.”