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Mpls school budget plan cuts teachers, freezes salaries
by Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio
June 12, 2003

Norma Ulasich says her future as a teacher has been unclear since getting a layoff notice. (MPR Photo/Tim Pugmire)

The number of teacher layoffs in the Minneapolis school district continues to grow. Union leaders say pink slips have now been issued to 464 teachers with less than four years experience. Another 98 veteran teachers are also in danger of losing their jobs. The layoffs are part of the district's effort to solve a nearly $30 million budget shortfall.

Minneapolis, Minn. — Minneapolis school district officials are increasing class sizes for the 2003-04 school year in most grades. The move will save $10 million, which solves about a third of the budget deficit. Enrollment in the state's largest school district is also declining. There could be 1,400 fewer students in the fall. It all adds up to a need for fewer teachers.

Louise Sundin, president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, says she hasn't seen this many layoffs since the early 1980s.

"It has a tremendous overall negative effect on the attitudes of everyone in the system," Sundin said. "Everyone feels bad this spring. The morale is about as low as it can get."

At Richard R. Green Central Park School, students in a bilingual reading class spent their last day together playing games and watching a movie. Norma Ulasich spent the school year developing the program for Spanish-speaking first through third graders. She says her future as a teacher has been unclear since getting a layoff notice last month.

	Jill Comer

"I'll be teaching summer school for Minneapolis," Ulasich said. "But otherwise, next year, well who knows what's going to happen? It's kind of sad because I already have the program going in this school with my native Spanish students. So, we don't know what's going to happen next year."

In another classroom at the school, Jill Comer wrapped up her year of teaching 7th and 8th grade geography with the same uncertainty. This was Comer's second year of teaching in Minneapolis and the second year she got a pink slip. She's less optimistic this time about getting re-hired, but remains committed to her profession. "The politics of it are frustrating," Comer said. "I love what I do though. I'm not here for the politics, I'm here for my kids. I mean, if you become a teacher you know there's going to be things like that that happen. You do it for the kids. I love it and that's why I'm here. I wouldn't choose any other career, it's a rally great one."

Comer's students circulated a petition to try to convince school leaders to bring their teacher back next year. In previous years, administrators could hire back hundreds of laid off teachers before the start of the next school year. This year is different. Judi Golden, principal of Green Central Park, says she doesn't know yet if she'll be able to bring back any of her eight laid off teachers. She says it will be a tough loss.

"When I've watched these teachers teach, their enthusiasm for teaching, their love of teaching embraces the kids," Golden said. "And you just see kids loving to learn. And it really is, it's going to hurt us to lose this kind of talent."

	David Jennings

Minneapolis school district officials say the loss of talent could be even greater, depending on the result of contract negotiations. Last year, they froze wages for all non-teachers. David Jennings, the district's chief operating officer, says the new budget is based on a freezing all employee wages. But he says those concessions must still be negotiated with each bargaining group.

"For argument's sake let's just say that one individual group insists on holding out for some increase of some kind," Jennings said. "If that's what happens, and if there is no other alternative, then the outcome of that will be additional layoffs to achieve the dollars necessary to do whatever that increase requires."

The teachers' union, for one, isn't conceding anything. Louise Sundin of the MFT says her membership has already taken a cut in health insurance, and they'll have more students in their classrooms this fall. She's predicting difficult negotiations ahead.

"I would say it will be rancorous to a level we haven't seen in 20 years," Sundin said. The current contracts for teachers and a dozen other employee groups will expire at the end of the month. The Minneapolis school board is expected to adopt the budget for the coming school year on June 24.

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