|
Board saves nurses, social workers from layoffs
Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson sought the layoffs of almost
100 teachers and other employees because of a projected
deficit of $19 million.
Friday, February 25, 2005,
BY RICHARD C. DUJARDIN,
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- A divided School Board refused last night to lay off 21
nurse-teachers and 10 social workers but agreed to send pick
slips to 20 guidance counselors and 47 elementary school
teachers.
About 150
people attended the meeting to appeal to board members to hold
their ground and send a message to Governor Carcieri and the
General Assembly that the board believes the proposed
1.7-percent increase in state aid is woefully inadequate and
that they won't adopt any further cuts that jeopardize
children's safety and education.
The School
Department has a projected deficit of $19 million for the next
fiscal year.
Schools
Supt. Melody A. Johnson said layoff notices are needed in
order to keep the School Board's options open, because the
notices can be rescinded. Teachers and other employees such as
coaches, athletic directors, nurses and guidances counselors
cannot be laid off for the next school year unless they are
notified by March 1.
Maila
Toray and Robert Wise were the only board members to vote
against layoff notices on most of Johnson's recommendations,
but they voted with the majority in refusing to send notices
to nurse-teachers and to social workers.
Under
Johnson's proposal, half of the nurse-teachers in the district
would have received layoff notices for a possible saving of
$1.36 million.
But board
member Dilania M. Inoa said nurse-teachers are too important,
and she did not want the board to have the option to remove
any of them from the payroll. She and Toray, Wise, Adeola
Oredola and Grace Gonzalez voted against laying them off.
School Board President Mary McClure voted in favor of the
layoff notices, and Dr. Milton Hamolsky abstained.
A proposal
to notify 10 of the School Department's 40 social workers that
they were being laid off failed on a 4-2 vote. Gonzalez
recused herself from that vote because she said one of the
laid-off employees would have been her daughter's social
worker. Eliminating the 10 jobs would have saved $650,000.
The board
voted 6-2 to send notices to four athletic directors and 67
coaches that they would lose their stipends for sports if
athetics is cut.
On a 4-3
vote, the board upheld layoff notices for 20 guidance
counselors, for a potential savings of $1.3 million.
At the
public hearing before the votes, more than 50 adults and
youngsters from ACORN, the Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now, marched into the meeting at the
Springfield Elementary School carrying flowers as they
followed a mock coffin bearing the words Our Future. About a
dozen of them were linked by a yellow plastic chain.
Nancy
Krahe, a social worker, told the board, "This meeting feels
like a sinking ship" and said the board had a responsibility
to "us, the passengers" to see that ship did not founder.
A refusal
to protest a lack of money from the state would be "like
refusing to send out a distress signal," Krahe said. |
