Thank you, Ohio charter schools...you've created another mess!

Lorain: Outcry over teacher cuts

Parents, teachers lash out at Lorain school board meeting

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Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, June 12, 2007
By Bette Pearce

LORAIN — About 500 people packed the Frank Jacinto Elementary School gymnasium to give the Lorain school board a piece of their mind.

One by the one, parents, teachers, support staff and students came to the microphone, some angry and demanding that all of the board members resign; others in tears, pleading that board not carry out its previously announced intention of cutting 246 teachers.

“For 36 years, you were my boss,” a visibly angry Carol Gates told the board. “Now, I’m not afraid to say, without fear of retaliation, that I am your boss; you answer to me. And as your boss, if I could, I’d fire you, but all I can do is ask you to resign.”

Before the emotional audience got to have their say, however, new Treasurer Ryan Ghizzoni outlined the school district’s financial problems using an overhead screen displaying columns of numbers. The district’s financial crisis, he said, was to blame on a vastly underestimated projection for the cost of what are known as purchase services, which means the district faces a $4.75 million deficit by June 30.

Purchase services include expenditures for about 1,500 charter-school students, transportation and utilities. That deficit would jump to $15 million by next year without the cuts made last week, including $12.5 million in teachers’ salaries, $1 million in administrative positions, and $2.2 million in non-certified personnel.

But the audience members weren’t in the mood for more explanations. They’d already heard the story Thursday when Morgan announced jobs of teachers across the district would be eliminated.

When board member Dina Ferrer said there previously had been nothing to indicate the district’s financial problems were mounting, she was drowned out by jeers from the crowd.

“How can you sit there and say you don’t know what happened to the money?” a man, who identified himself as a member of Local 2000 United Autoworkers, asked. “It’s a bald-faced lie.”

A woman who said she was the parent of a student in the district told the board members they’d failed their fiduciary responsibility. “And I ask all of your to resign,” she added.

Members of the crowd waited in line for several hours to have a chance to have their say. And through it all, the board members and Superintendent Dee Morgan, who will leave in late July, said little.

Morgan previously had said that the Lorain Education Association’s old contract with the district put a cap on the number of positions the district could eliminate as enrollment dropped. Without cutting the 246 positions, the district would be thrown into fiscal emergency status and taken over by the state, she said. The contract, however, states that any reduction in bargaining unit positions below 740 will occur only through attrition and/or for reasons of declining enrollment. The contract also states that one teacher can be eliminated for every three students lost.

Since the school district’s enrollment has been declining due to charter schools for several years, several people wanted to know why jobs weren’t gradually eliminated, as the enrollment declined.

But most of those who made their way to the microphone didn’t question the financial aspects of the district’s problems. They simply pleaded for the jobs of their teachers and friends and begged the district’s leaders to not eliminate the art and music programs that set the district apart from so many other districts. Ricardo Torres, a student at Southview High School, spoke of the encouragement he’d received to pursue music studies and of the music teacher “who was there for me.”

“These kids in the streets, so many kids come out of the streets in the summer for band camp in the summer. They touch these kids’ hearts,” he said.

The meeting capped off a long day for the district, which began Monday morning when about 200 newly unemployed teachers filled a Spitzer Conference Center dining room. There, representatives of the college and the Workforce Institute’s Employment Network were on hand to offer advice on searching for other jobs, filing for unemployment benefits and even redirecting their careers.

Many of the teachers, however, wanted Christine Miller, president of the Lorain Education Association to call for a vote right then to rescind the contract the membership had approved Thursday.

The teachers said they felt the union misled them into thinking they had no choice but approve the contract or the school would be immediately taken over by the state.

“We had only 48 hours to ratify a contract,” said a teacher who didn’t want to be identified. “I’m so upset I can’t stand it.”

Miller, however, said the union’s constitution requires the membership be given 36 hours’ notice before a vote.

Tears trickled down Sarita Havens’ cheek at the LCCC meeting. She’s a single mother of three children who lost her teaching position with Lorain Schools after 10 years.

“I’m probably going to have to relocate,” Havens said. “This is my worst nightmare. I’m 37 with three kids and will be starting over. I’ll be looking elsewhere, unless God creates a miracle.”

Pam Kryc, 40 and a single mother, said she’s trying to find a teaching job in Ohio, “but it’s looking pretty bleak.”

Kryc said she has been a teacher for 17 years, with 10 of those years in the Lorain district.

Divorced with three children, Kryc said she ironically got her termination notice from the school district the same day she got a notice that her salary would be increased.

“This is devastating, just devastating,” Kryc said. “This is big for me; it’s my job, my life.”

Contact Bette Pearce at 329-7148 or bpearce@chroniclet.com.

Jason miller / chronicle

Photo: Sharon Svette throws up her arms in frustration while talking to the Lorain school board on Monday. She enrolls her children in Lorain Schools through open enrollment.