The Cruelest Blow of All …

Senior Staff Targeted for Transfers for 2nd Year in a Row

Seniority Choice Ignored

Despite the "happy endings" at NST and School # 12, on the very day that students returned to their school, a crueler fate struck staff members at schools throughout the district.

On Friday, May 25, as staff and students were preparing to celebrate the Memorial Day weekend, more disappointing news reached many staff members in the elementary schools. In order to "save jobs" the District sent letters to at least 57 Academic Support Teachers (AST's) indicating that they would be transferred into classrooms in other schools due to the "flat budget plus 3%" that the District had accepted from the State.

In April, the Board of Education, upon the recommendation of the State District Superintendent of Schools, chose to accept state funding at the same level as 2006-07 with a 3% increase. The Board knew when they accepted this budget that it would not have sufficient funds to provide the services and programs planned for the students in the 2007-08 school year.

However, were the administration to request that the Board choose to appeal the budget, the State Department of Education would be permitted to come into the district and review all of the books; an review that, apparently, the administration was unwilling to undergo, since the State could then make recommendations and require the District management to make specific reductions. Those reductions could, in fact, reduce the budget even more, perhaps requiring reductions in administrative staff or other pet projects of the management, such as paying Nova University as consultants.

The District instead chose to make an arbitrary decision that AST's who were servicing students in school that had passed their Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) under the No Child Left Behind guidelines would lose their AST positions, and be transferred to schools that had planned vacancies due to retirements, resignations, or leaves of absence.

Apparently the District management, in attempting to impose more of its non-ugly culture on the district, removed building principals from any and all decisions related to staffing of their schools for next year. Instead, Assistant Superintendents, playing the role of Robert Young in "Father Knows Best", were given the responsibility.

As a result, vacancies in classroom positions are not be filled by AST's in the school. Instead, in a school with four AST's and at least one opening, an AST from another school will be transferred in to fill the vacancy. The four AST's, all of whom have been in the building for many years; know the school and its parents, will be transferred to other schools to, in effect, start over again.

Compounding the anger, requests for transfers have been rejected by these very same Assistant Superintendents. In doing so, staff members who want to leave a building remain but people who want to stay are tossed aside.

Just coincidentally, almost every one of the AST's who are being moved from their schools are over 50 years of age. On one case, a staff member with 45 years in one school is being moved. "We have to assume that loyalty to a school and a school community is the 'ugly culture' that this leadership team wants so desperately to eliminate," commented P.E.A. President Pete Tirri.

The District has refused several requests to use seniority in filling school vacancies whereby senior staff members would be permitted to take over vacant classrooms or their former positions in the school.

"The way of life that has existed in this district for years, that of caring about students and knowing their families is being turned upside down," Tirri continued. "It is evident that this administration intends to change everything from former administrations, good or bad, to make a name for itself. It's revisionist history in its worst form."

WHAT CAN BE DONE??

P.E.A. has called upon NJEA attorneys to investigate the discriminatory policies of the administration to see if charges of ageism can be brought, since it is clear that the transfer of senior staff members is designed in the hope that they will retire.

Tirri commented, "The people being set adrift on the sea of confusion are our most senior staff members. They should not be cast adrift at this point in their careers, but rather celebrated and appreciated for their knowledge, skills and experience