Here's what happened at last night's school board meeting from the Providence Journal:
Speaker after speaker demanded to know why they were being fired. Didn’t the teachers union sign on to the federal Race to the Top initiative? Hasn’t the union collaborated with Supt. Tom Brady on new curricula? Isn’t the union working with the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers on a new teacher evaluation?
“I’m feeling disrespected, devalued and marginalized,” said Ed Gorden. “Termination is a career-ender. You are putting a scarlet letter on every one of us.”
Teachers begged the School Board to issue layoffs rather than fire them outright because, under the layoff provisions, teachers are recalled based on seniority. There is no guarantee that seniority would be used to bring back any of the fired teachers. School leaders have been vague about exactly how seniority will play out in the case of terminations.
Before the vote, several School Board members explained their reasons for supporting or rejecting the motion to dismiss:
Philip Gould said he believes that Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith is committed to serious and meaningful school reform, adding that if “we do this, it will be detrimental to the children of this district.”
Nina Pande said the board is faced with an extremely difficult decision and that the board was given only three days to close a $40-million deficit.
Melissa Malone, Kathleen Crain, Pande and Julian Dash voted for the motion to dismiss; Robert Wise, Brian Lalli and Gould voted against it.
Earlier Thursday, Smith called the terminations “an attack on labor and an attack on collective bargaining.”
“This is a back-door Wisconsin,” Smith said, referring to the weeklong protests in Madison by labor unions. “We don’t know why we’re being fired. The mayor says he needs flexibility. Can you buy that? I don’t know of any other district that has done this.”
Thursday night, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called the possible dismissals “shocking,” and said the move will “disrupt the education of all students and the entire community.”
Superintendent Brady has said that the majority of teachers will be rehired but could not give any details until the mayor’s special panel completes its report on the city’s financial status.
My teacher friends in Providence, across the river from where I live, are calling this a "back door Wisconsin." Terminating all teachers in the city, instead of laying off all teachers in the city, makes a mockery of the teachers' union contract. With a huge budget shortfall, teachers were expecting layoff warning letters. They knew that some teachers would lose their jobs. But the recall process from layoffs still respects the negotiated contract. Those teachers who are recalled still enjoy step raises based on seniority, for example. Termination ends the contract. An award winning teacher with 25 years service, working at a higher pay scale, will now have to compete with an untested graduate, who can be paid at the lowest rate, to get her job back. Will the board choose the proven veteran who costs twice as much? Teaching in a largely low-income city like Providence is a very tough job. This insane action almost guarantees that the experienced glue that holds these fragile schools together will be melted away, replaced by eager, energetic, but probably (at least for a few years) much less effective teachers.