On March 14, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) sent out Reduction-In-Force (RIF), better known as “pink slips,” notices to teachers, to a quarter of all staff members in the district.
The RIF notices, postponed after a United Teachers of LA (UTLA) conference in protest of the RIFs, were sent out later this year, in hopes that a delay would enable new information about the budget to come out. But with no such occurrence, the LAUSD was forced to send notices to 9,500 employees.
“It’s depressing,” Cecily Vizas, teacher at LA Center for Enriched Studies, said. Vizas received a RIF notice this March. Whether or not a teacher receives a notice is based solely on seniority and the situation at the school in question. With byzantine rules at the LAUSD regarding the notices, it’s difficult for teachers to even know their seniority numbers and their ranking.
Of course, seniority is not the sole factor in deciding if a teacher can be laid off or not. If a teacher is at a school with a minimal number of staff, a teacher is considered ineligible for a RIF, even if his or her seniority number is lower than the standard. But situations like these are relatively rare: new teachers are usually laid off so that teachers with more seniority can take their positions.
“I’m just worried about larger class sizes,” Vizas said. With up to nine teachers and all three administrators at her school receiving RIF notices, the effects can be catastrophic if all notified teachers and administrators are removed. Already, a number of schools struggle with distended class sizes and minimal staff, from administrators to janitors, to maintain their expected standard of education.
Even so, it is unlikely that the LAUSD will truly remove a quarter of its staff. UTLA has protested what it calls hyperbolic and overly dramatic actions. Indeed, the LAUSD has reviewed its budget and, primarily from a school district lottery it has recently won, sent out notices to teachers with RIFs, promising that a large number of these RIFs will be rescinded by May.
The LAUSD will be unable to rescind its RIF notices until May, when the state May Revise, a projected estimate of the state’s budget, is released so that the LAUSD can solidify its budget and decide how much resources to allocate to its programs and staff.
