Duval County lets 500 teachers go

I was at the school board meeting Monday night and it was heart breaking to hear about the carpenters and the custodians that were about to lose their jobs. Though they aren’t the only ones. About five hundred teachers through non-reappointments and surpluses have or about to lose their jobs too.

Teachers who are non-reappointed are fired. They are not allowed to work in the district for a year and it makes finding a teaching position harder to do, after all who wants to hire a teacher who was fired. I have a problem with this process. The vast majority of teachers who were non-reappointed received a satisfactory evaluation, weren’t told they were in danger of losing their job until they lost their jobs and most weren’t given a reason. The district doesn’t have to give them one. I talked to one non-reappointed teachers who went from high performing (the best evaluation a teacher can have) to satisfactory and out of a job in the course of a year, he received notice of his termination through a letter from human resources. His principal never let him know.

Surplused teachers have a chance to get their jobs back. Right now they don’t have a teaching assignment but if something opens up they are on the top of the list, which is based on seniority. If not a reduction in force (RIF) happens and they are let go. With each school taking a 1.5% budget cut and with the classes considered core which have class size maximums reduced from over 800 to just over 200, I am not optimistic many will find positions.

Combined this is over 500 teachers that won’t have jobs which will put even more pressure on those remaining to educate our children. Which means more children won’t receive the education they deserve, more that will fall through the cracks, more that will be left behind and more we are dooming to at best a menial existence that will see some on government assistance and others in Jail .

These our troubling times and all you need to do is look west towards Tallahassee to see who is responsible, you se in the capital they don't think education or are children are important..

Chris Guerrieri