D.C. school officials told 660 teachers and school staffers that their jobs have been scrapped for the upcoming school year, blaming fluctuations in enrollment and school finances. “Given reductions in many local school budgets for 2011-12, approximately 660 employees across the school system received excess notices this week, effective at the end of the school year,” said Fred Lewis, a spokesman for Acting Chancellor Kaya Henderson.
D.C. Public Schools, which has about 4,000 teachers and 2,300 support staff, declined to release a breakdown of positions cut at each school.
But even schools expecting both more students and more cash next year were forced to cut positions as part of the school system’s annual excessing process.
Sources at Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Northwest said that at least 13 positions had been eliminated. According to DCPS’ proposed fiscal 2012 budget, Ellington is expecting 60 more students and an additional $674,000 in funding next year.
Lewis stressed that excessing is not the same as a typical layoff. “Excessed employees have the opportunity to seek employment at other schools, and historically, many are ‘picked up’ by other principals who have vacancies,” he said.
Janet Peachey, who teaches music theory at Ellington, said she was offered a part-time position for about one-third of the pay and no benefits. “I’m not really interested in working in another school — there’s no other school where I’d be able to do what I do,” she said.
Anne Veigle, who lives in Arlington, pays out-of-boundary tuition to send her 12th-grade son to Ellington’s music program. “We are so impressed with the program there, and we’ve been extremely happy with the education there, but a cut of that size feels like it’s cutting to the bone,” Veigle said.
Sources at School Without Walls said the top-performing magnet is losing at least four positions, including three teachers, for the next school year. Walls is set to serve 63 more students while taking a $320,490 hit.
An e-mail notifying an excessed Walls teacher obtained by The Washington Examiner reads: “Annually, it is necessary for District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) to equalize staff assignments to be in alignment with student enrollment. As a result of this equalization, your current position has been removed from the … staffing plan effective June 17, 2011.”
Kamel Igoudjil, a humanities instructor at Walls, said he is “absolutely” planning to fight the elimination of his teaching position. “This is not acceptable to me.”
