You may have seen this one in the citywide media – a teachers’ union saying that Seattle teachers were receiving a letter that in effect canceled their contracts, because of a change in how many “Learning Improvement Days” they’ll be working (1 instead of 2). Seattle Public Schools subsequently issued a statement last night saying, among other things (read the entire statement here) “The District did not send letters today to certificated staff on this topic.” Perhaps that meant they sent the letters some other day, as some teachers have indeed received the letter in question, like longtime Arbor Heights Elementary third-grade teacher (and Web guru) Mark Ahlness – who uploaded his to Flickr (see it here), as proof … it’s dated yesterday. KOMO TV has a followup online tonight, quoting West Seattle school-board rep Steve Sundquist as saying, “We are not firing all our teachers,” while district communications staff say they are “looking into” the discrepancy between the statement and the letter delivery. There’s a detailed discussion/dissection in this comment section on saveseattleschools.blogspot.com. 10:53 PM UPDATE: Checking the SPS website, we note that the district has posted another update online, explaining the discrepancy:
When the District learned this week that the Legislature would not be called back in session, we informed the Seattle Education Association (SEA) that the reductions in state funding would result in one less day for next year’s contract. The District and SEA have been discussing the impacts of reduced state funding for several weeks. We shared with SEA a letter we had prepared notifying their members that next year’s contracts would be for one less day than this year’s contract, or 181 days instead of 182 days.
Labor leaders informed the District on Friday of their intent to file an unfair labor practice against the District. We decided that we would wait until early next week to notify SEA members, allowing time for a more thoughtful discussion with SEA. In an effort to clear up confusion caused by WEA’s Friday press release that erroneously claimed the District had “fired 3,300 teachers,” we notified all of our staff that evening by email that reduced state funding would result in one less day for certificated staff next year.
While instructions were given that letters to teachers and other certificated staff should not be sent until early next week, we now know that some letters were mailed Friday evening instead of being held until early next week.
The fact remains that the legislature eliminated both authorization and funding for one Learning Improvement Day (LID), which means a reduction in funding of $1 million to Seattle Public Schools. In light of needing to fill an additional $34 million budget gap, we must in turn eliminate that LID day from next year’s contract.
We sincerely regret the confusion created for our staff this weekend.
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