This spring, more than 20,000 California educators - an astounding number by anyone's reckoning - were sent layoff notices. By June, the number had been whittled down to an estimated 3,000, due in large part to the activism and strength demonstrated by CTA chapters.
Throughout the state, chapters organized their communities behind them and let school boards and district administrators know that they would not be intimidated by threats of termination.
Early on, CTA President Wayne Johnson put the districts on notice when he called the issuance of massive layoff notices "public intimidation to try and force concessions and takebacks at the bargaining table."
The over-issuance of reductions-in-force (RIFs) notices let teachers know "exactly what these districts think of them."
The Alameda Education Association organized members, mobilized parents and took the district to court to get the district to rescind the notices sent to every member, all 635 of them. The chapter's efforts succeeded in getting 624 RIFs reversed. It is still fighting for 11 teachers who remain on the termination list.
In other areas, members stood firmly together and said "No" to bargaining concessions. The College of the Sierras Faculty Association, which is part of the CTA-affiliated Community College Association, was able to uncover a $10 million reserve that the district had not disclosed. The unit was able to negotiate a golden handshake for faculty nearing retirement that will save an estimated $1.6 million.
The hardball tactics of districts may prove damaging to them in the end. The fallout over the layoff battle in the San Juan Unified School District, for example, has left school employees in the Sacramento area chapter deeply resentful.
"The trust is gone," says Nancy Waltz, president of the 3,000-member San Juan Teachers Association. "Teachers are feeling a lot of bitterness over the disrespect they were shown here."
Teachers were outraged in March when the 47,000-student San Juan Unified School District needlessly issued 660 preliminary teacher layoff notices and later threatened to kill off class size reduction programs in kindergarten and third-grade classrooms to save money.
Following chapter-organized rallies, the district reduced its teacher layoff target to about 250.
Thanks to the chapter doing its homework about the true nature of the district's finances, the district ended up laying off 52 teachers - and keeping its full participation in the state's class size reduction program for all K-3 classrooms.
Waltz credits science teacher Linda Yadao for coming up with the math that showed the district would only save about $120,000 by increasing class sizes, not the $2.3 million it claimed. Yadao worked with CTA staff to reveal the real financial picture.
Many of the laid-off San Juan teachers are getting hired by other districts in the region.
Other districts were equally inept. Of the initial 950 notices sent out to United Teachers of Richmond members, 662 were rescinded - largely due to mistakes made by the district's personnel department.
"The district 'over-noticed' people, or they gave notices to credentialed teachers who they thought didn't have credentials. There were a lot of errors made," says UTR President Terri Jackson.
While Jackson was pleased so many notices were rescinded, she said the whole process brought down the morale in the district.
"There was so much confusion," she says. "It was a total disruption in people's lives."
Superintendent Alan Bersin of the San Diego Unified School District sent out 1,479 layoff notices in March, all of which were rescinded by May. Now the district has announced it will hire an additional 700 teachers.
"These teachers were left hanging for two months, not knowing whether they would have a job or not," says San Diego Education Association President Terry Pesta. "They're glad to know they have a job now, but having received a RIF notice years ago, I can tell you [the hurt feeling] is really something that never goes away."
Pesta maintains the administration had ulterior motives in its decision to lay off so many teachers. "The district didn't overtly say it, but they were trying to get us to agree to rollbacks in salaries," he says. "Well, we wouldn't do it."
CTA President Johnson credits CTA members around the state for the massive rescission of notices: "You organized and protested and made a huge media fight out of it. And you won."
Dale Martin and Mike Myslinski
