Washington students voice opposition to possible teacher cuts

High school administrators came to work on Friday morning to find 30 students peacefully protesting outside of their main office.

The students said they assembled in order to voice their frustration with the newest wave of cost cutting actions by school administrators, which could leave nine more Washington teachers unemployed at the end of the school year.

“We knew that some of our teachers were getting cut,” said Ethan Black, a junior at Washington High School, and one of the sit-in's organizers. “We understand it's a budget thing ... but we at least want to make them know we aren't happy about it.”

During the past two weeks, Washington School District's interim Superintendent Dave Sextro has handed out 12 severance notices to teachers in the district's four schools, mostly in arts, music and physical education positions.

Sextro says that he had seen this move coming for some time and it was necessary to keep the district's funds solvent.

“This funding issue is the worst I've ever seen, the worst in my career,” Sextro said. “I was called here to straighten out the budget ... that's why I may have to lay people off.”

When Sextro, 69, arrived as interim Superintendent in 2008, he inherite a district that had overspent its budget authority by roughly $140,000. Two years later, Sextro says the combination of state funding cuts, declining enrollment and inflexible posturing by the district's teachers union leaves him few options to bridge a near-$1 million shortfall.

“You cannot lose eleven and half percent of your budget without either having to cut staff and raise taxes and we've done both.”

Suzy Card, a union representative with the Washington Teachers Association, said that isn't good enough.

In a district of 142 teachers, Card said cutting 12 educators is a short term solution to a larger problem.

“(Sextro) is very eager to get rid of some very good teachers and will be passing on bigger class sizes for everyone,” she said.

School officials and the teachers' union are currently locked in contract negotiations that are likely to move on to arbitration, and Card said Sextro gave out the severance notices as a bargaining tactic.

“They want to body bargain ... if you settle for this, we won't cut people,” Card said. “But there's nothing to stop them from turning around and cutting them anyway.”

Sextro said that he hopes to be able to reinstate some, if not all of the teachers that have been notified that the board might not renew their contracts. But for that to happen, he said the pay raises the teacher's group wants will have to come down.

“Bottom line, we have to settle negotiations.”