Elk Grove scrambles to place 445 rehired teachers in classrooms

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Posted July 19th, 2011 by Charlotte Draper No Comments »

Renita Wilks welcomed kindergartners in Room K-1 at Prairie Elementary to their first day of school Monday.

But she won’t be their teacher for long. Wilks is filling in while Elk Grove Unified School District officials try to figure out who will be teaching the class this school year.

This scenario played out in a dozen classrooms scattered across the 12 year-round elementary schools that started school in the district this week.

Some might say this is a good problem to have. District officials decided just last week to rehire all 445 teachers laid off in May. They began calling them back Wednesday.

By Monday morning, the district had reached all but 12 of the 120 teachers laid off from year-round schools. The district enlisted substitutes and off-track teachers for those classes.

“We expect we will be able to contact all the teachers by the end of the week,” said Donna Cherry, the assistant superintendent of elementary education.

The result: Classes that were set to increase their class size up to 26 pupils in kindergarten through third grade and 30 in fourth through sixth grades will remain at 24 and 28, respectively, Cherry said.

Schools with a majority of low-income students, like Prairie Elementary, will have 22 kids in kindergarten through third grade and 26 in fourth through sixth grades instead of going up another two students.

The last-minute rehires came just two weeks after lawmakers finalized the state budget, holding education funding flat and calling for all districts to staff their schools at the same levels as last school year.

“It took time to figure out what it all means,” district spokeswoman Elizabeth Graswich said of the state budget.

By Friday rehired teachers started showing up at their schools to set up desks, fill out name tags, arrange stacks of composition books and pencils, and tape the letters of the alphabet up on walls.

Marti Wakefield was at her son’s soccer game in Davis on Friday when she got the call. After the game, the six-year teacher rushed to her Elk Grove home to collect the cache of classroom supplies stored in her garage and headed to Prairie Elementary to set up her classroom.

“I’m thrilled to be back,” Wakefield said. She was particularly happy to be back teaching third grade at Prairie, where she taught last year.

By Monday, with help of family and other teachers and $70 out of her own pocket to supplement her supplies, Wakefield’s recently empty classroom was nearly ready with only wall hangings lacking.

“There were a lot of us here this weekend,” Wakefield said Monday. She said the mood on campus on Saturday and Sunday was festive, with teachers welcoming one another back and offering hugs to those recently rehired.

Last year, Melissa Bonito and Marete Buchanan were team-teaching a sixth-grade class. Monday the newly rehired teachers were preparing for their afternoon kindergarten class.

They had a lot of help. An administrator, instructional coach and off-track teacher helped fill folders with information for the parents and other folders with lessons for the children. The pace picked up as the clock neared 10 a.m. and children started to file in.

But administrators say the day seemed much like any other. “The first day of school is always hectic,” Cherry said.

Teachers weren’t the only ones given last-minute notice. On Monday morning parents huddled around class lists taped to the windows of the school office at Prairie. School officials had taped the lists up over the weekend.

Shieflanda Lebron said she checked for her children’s classroom assignments on Saturday. She said the rosters usually are available the week before school, but she didn’t mind the wait. She is happy the teachers are returning. “That’s good,” she said. “That means more learning, more one on one with the teacher.”

Most parents said they didn’t even know about the last-minute rehiring of the teachers.

“This is so organized,” said Nefertiti Banks, whose 4-year-old daughter was starting kindergarten in Room K-1. “It’s so amazing they were able to put this together.”

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