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QuickTake:
Eugene School District 4J sent out emails notifying staff of layoffs, hour reductions and transfers on the evening of May 1. The district is cutting 265 full-time equivalents and three executive-level staff to reduce its budget by $27.7 million.
Friday, May 1, was a tense day in Eugene School District 4J.
More than 265 staff members received layoff notices at 5 p.m. Others learned their hours would be reduced or they’d be transferred to new schools.
“People were checking their emails all day,” said special education teacher Lily of the Valley Ritchie. “It was pretty stressful.”
She was one of about a dozen teachers who stood on Ferry Street Bridge on Friday evening, waving signs to encourage motorists to support education. None of them had received the dreaded layoff email but knew many coworkers who had. Full details on which staff were ultimately cut and where, however, are yet to be known.
Layoff numbers
Over the winter, the 4J school board approved the district’s proposal to cut up to 269 full-time equivalent positions to fill a budget gap originally believed to be $30 million – but later discovered to be $44.1 million.
According to a budget presentation April 22, the district is cutting 265 full-time equivalent positions next year (in addition to three executive positions approved by the superintendent), 56.6% of which are licensed positions. The district will cut its executive leadership in half, its managerial staff by 18.2%, its licensed staff by 13% and its classified staff by 8.7%. One full-time equivalent can equal two or more part-time employees, hence the use of FTE. Here is the breakdown of cuts by employee group:
- Licensed (ex: teachers, counselors, speech and occupational therapists): 149.77 FTE
- Classified (ex: cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians, secretaries): 83.14 FTE
- Leadership (ex: managers, supervisors, administrators): 32.35 FTE
- Executive (ex: directors, assistant superintendents): 3 FTE
The May 1 notices aren’t necessarily the final word. As some staff members retire or leave the district, laid-off workers may have a chance to be rehired. And staff who aren’t laid off might be shifted around up until the beginning of next school year depending on factors like enrollment that are still up in the air.
Grieving losses
Erika Wolf, an instructional coach at Charlemagne Elementary School, reflected on the many losses that will come with the staff cuts. For example, 4J paid for professional development in recent years to train teachers in the newest, science-backed methods of teaching reading.
“The thing that’s really awful is that 4J has invested a lot of money in these teachers,” she said. “Those teachers are now leaving for other districts.”
While Wolf won’t be laid off due to seniority, she won’t be an instructional coach anymore, a role she loved because of how it bridged the gap between the schools and the district office.
“It felt unifying,” she said. “It felt like I could speak directly to the people making the decisions that would affect my teachers.”
The district is heavily reducing instructional coaches next year. It’s also cutting many cafeteria workers, said Morgan Raikes-Bennett, a member of the classified employee union, who was at Washington Jefferson Park for a workers’ rights rally Friday afternoon. In addition, the district lowered some cafeteria staff members’ hours below the required level for receiving benefits, Raikes-Bennett said.
A transition specialist at Sheldon High School for special education students, Raikes-Bennett worries that with less staff, the district will not be able to provide the services kids need.
“If you fail to hold your responsibilities — legal responsibilities, contractual responsibilities — you’re opening yourself up to litigation, sometimes from families, which eventually, again, is going to reduce the budget available to have frontline employees,” Raikes-Bennett said.
Wolf said the cuts will affect certain schools more than others, like Willagillespie Elementary School, which has a higher proportion of new teachers than others. And Ritchie anticipates that students who are most disadvantaged — students who live in poverty, come from immigrant families or have special needs, for example — will be the ones who feel the reductions at the middle school level.
“I have a lot of concerns and feel very protective of my students and our community and making sure that the kids feel supported,” she said. “But if the teachers don’t feel supported, then how will the students feel supported?”
