May 24, 2004

BY CHERYL JACKSON Staff Reporter

About 3,660 Chicago Public Schools workers, including 2,180 teachers, will get pink slips this week in a budget-balancing effort to trim a $100 million deficit facing the system, the Board of Education will announce today.

School officials were quick to note, however, the net loss of teachers in the nation's third-largest school system will amount to only 130, once about 2,050 vacant or new teaching positions are filled by laid-off teachers who can apply for them.

The layoffs, immediately assailed by teachers and community stakeholders, represent the most dramatic reduction affecting CPS' 26,550 teachers since Mayor Daley took over control of the system in 1995.

The laid-off teachers are at facilities being closed or where declining enrollment have reduced staff needs, schools CEO Arne Duncan said.

Another 1,300 non-teaching personnel inside the schools, including teacher aides, security guards, clerks and parent workers, will be told not to come back next year.

The in-school work force reductions are expected to save the system $60 million, officials said.

CPS has 600 schools and 435,000 students.

"This budget is one of the tightest we have ever faced, and we may not be done yet, depending on what happens with the state," Duncan said.

He said 180 personnel from central and regional administration offices, or 10 percent of administrative staff, are being let go -- and the pay of some other administration staff is being cut 10 percent to 20 percent through reduced shifts. The administration work force reductions could save $20 million.

About $23 million will be saved through increased federal revenues expected for preschool, after-school, reading, bilingual and summer school programs, officials said.

The administration cuts aren't enough, charged the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, which had threatened Duncan with a lawsuit in February when he first announced he was considering axing 1,000 school jobs to close the projected deficit.

"They need to do more chopping from the top," Deborah Lynch complained. "We intend to fight any effort to close the Board of Education's budget deficit on the backs of our members."

Lynch stands to lose from any backlash of angry union members, as last week's CTU elections left her facing a June 11 runoff with special-education teacher Marilyn Stewart.

Lynch demanded Duncan look to administration cuts from CPS' Area Instructional Offices, which have grown from six to 24 under Duncan.

Some critics also rejected the plan to slash teaching and other school staff, suggesting the board look first to questionable CPS programs and administrative staff.

Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education, pointed to the tuition-based preschool program and the often criticized Department of Community and Local School Councils Relations.

"All they're doing is providing low-cost day care to middle-class families who can afford to pay -- and they have a lot of highly paid people who are not serving schools very well," Woestehoff said.

Others charged that student learning will suffer.

"The majority of the cuts are in support staff like teacher aides and parent workers, which are critical to the well-being and functioning of schools in our community," said Derrick Harris, president of the North Lawndale LSC Federation.

Duncan said public hearings will be held on the proposed budget before it is presented to the School Board at its June 23 meeting.

The final number of teacher layoffs will be unknown for some time, as those employees must now begin applying for positions at other schools. Critics predict the shakeout will number in the hundreds, as teachers can only move to teaching positions in which they are certified eligible.

Contributing: MAUDLYNE IHEJIRIKA