OF TWENTY THOUSAND EDUCATORS PINK-SLIPPED IN CALIFORNIA, PINK SLIPS ARRIVE IN 11,700 LAUSD MAIBOXES

…if Los Angeles Unified represents about 20% of California’s education pie, why does it have 58.5% of the potential layoffs?

By Barbara Jones, dailynews.com |http://bit.ly/y7thT6

3/15/2012 04:59:34 PM PDT   ::  The last of more than 11,700 pink slips were waiting for Los Angeles Unified employees when they arrived home today, the state-mandated deadline for notifying district workers that they may be laid off in 2012-13.

Notices began arriving by certified mail late last week, even as district officials were reworking budget figures to reflect an unexpected infusion of $180.5 million from the state.

That windfall would help cover about $13 million in improvements and still reduce the projected budget deficit for the next school year from $557 million to $390 million.

The number of pink slips mailed out was based on the original projection. About 9,000 of the 11,713 notices targeted teachers, officials said.

Statewide, about 20,000 layoff notices were sent to educators, according to the California Teachers Association.

"It's shocking and humiliating," said Greg Dobie, 52, a veteran English-language and citizenship teacher at Van Nuys Adult School, who received his first-ever pink slip on Thursday. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do, what I'm going to do for my livelihood.

"I've been a good teacher. I am a good teacher," he said. "To be singled out in this way, by receiving a pink slip, is uncomfortable and unfortunate."

The distribution of pink slips reflects the interim plan approved Tuesday by the school board, which would close the deficit by gutting a number of programs.

Pink slips were mailed to 3,617 teachers and administrators in Adult Education and 687 in Early Childhood Education, both of which would be decimated under the school board's worst-case scenario.

An additional 3,302 notices went to elementary teachers, 1,254 to middle and high school teachers and 2,206 to principals and other campus-based administrators.

A total of 647 counselors, librarians, nurses and other support staff also received notices.

Tom Torlakson, the state superintendent of Public Instruction, issued a statement addressing the uncertainty facing teachers as the budget process plays out.

"Every pink slip being issued today is an unwelcome and undeserved blow to the morale of the teacher who receives it," he said. "They should also remind all of us of the urgency of finding the will and the resources to end the financial emergency facing our public schools."

The budget will be finalized in June, after the district receives word on just how much money it's getting from the state. District officials hope the state's financial picture will improve enough by then to minimize the number of actual layoffs through concessions by United Teachers Los Angeles and its other labor unions.