Teacher Layoffs

The Ventura Unified School District may be able to save the jobs of 28 probationary teachers who had been warned that they could be laid off, district and teachers' union officials said Tuesday. The 28 teachers, all in their first or second year of employment, were notified in March that they could be laid off to help offset a projected $3.2-million deficit next school year.

The Beverly Hills Unified School District will not have to lay off any teachers next year because enough teachers and administrators have elected to take early retirement to make up for an expected budget deficit. Layoff notices were issued to 16 teachers in March as part of the district's effort to reduce a $1.2-million deficit in the 1988-89 budget. At the time, Supt. Robert French said the district would rescind the order if the district raised enough money to reduce the projected shortfall.

Confronted with an estimated shortfall of more than $500 million in the coming fiscal year, the Los Angeles Unified School District board Tuesday prepared to make deep cuts that would almost certainly include layoffs of teachers and others. At the urging of Supt. Roy Romer, the Board of Education took the unusual step of setting an early deadline for making the cuts, beginning with a special three-day budget session starting March 3.

More than 100 parent members of the activist group ACORN, along with students and teachers union members, held a forum Saturday at the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex in downtown Los Angeles to kick off a statewide campaign to underscore state-level reforms needed to avert teacher layoffs and class size increases. In the short term, organizers want Los Angeles Unified School District officials to use federal stimulus money. Organizers also want to have eliminated the two-thirds vote requirement for passing the state budget.

The Compton Unified School District board this week quietly rescinded 16 teacher layoffs that had been part of a $4.9-million emergency budget-cutting package. Supt. J. L. Handy said the layoffs proved unnecessary because of higher-than-expected enrollment and the resignation of an unspecified number of teachers. In fact, the district may need to hire five or six additional teachers, he said.

Sixteen non-tenured teachers learned this week that they will lose their jobs Friday as a result of budget cuts in the Compton Unified School District. The school board released the teachers' names at a meeting Tuesday. The board voted last month to cut more than 100 jobs in the district to help trim about $4.9 million from the district's $88-million budget. In another part of the cost-cutting plan, the board Tuesday eliminated the jobs of 20 administrators, effective immediately.

Would it be irresponsible of me to mix education and drugs in the same column? Perhaps, but here goes. Readers far and wide wanted to weigh in on two of my recent columns, one about statewide teacher layoffs and the other about a conservative Orange County judge who supports the legalization of drugs, so I'd like to keep both conversations going. But let's begin with the column on pink slips and teacher tenure.

Teacher layoff notices increased in more than half the states this spring, and teacher union leaders in 15 states expect more job actions in the back-to-school period. But an informal survey of state officials by the National Education Assn. found that threatened cuts in health care benefits emerged as an overwhelming, surprise choice as one of the toughest bargaining issues facing teachers. Highlights of the 2.

Westlake High football Coach Jim Benkert told his players Wednesday that he is uncertain whether he will return for his third season because of teacher layoffs in the Conejo Valley Unified School District. Benkert, 33, who led the Warriors to a 13-8-2 record over two seasons, was one of several teachers in the district given notice that that they might not be retained next fall because of a projected budget shortfall.

Teachers union members this week condemned Placentia Unified School District officials for interviewing graduating education students at Cal State Fullerton as the district prepares to lay off 158 teachers and administrators. "With all the teachers being laid off, it really doesn't help morale much," Cindy Lee, president of the Assn. of Placentia-Linda Educators, told the school board at a meeting Tuesday.