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Importance of raising issue of excessive layoffs
Write-in "Doug Mann" for School Board
by Doug Mann, 29 Oct 2004, Submitted to the Star-Tribune for publication 28 Oct 2004
In my opinion it is important for teacher who are being realigned out of their jobs to raise the issue about excessive layoffs, i.e., 210 jobs cut, 608 teachers laid off. Doing so will help to broaden your base of support among teachers and pro-labor community members, and because the excessive layoffs are a critical element of a legal appeal to win back your jobs, for the following three reasons:
1) The excessive layoffs are a device by which the administration has increased the number of teachers they can shuffle around,
2) The excessive layoffs are a means to shift the teachers in the "excessed positions" into the jobs of more senior teachers rather than into jobs of less senior teachers in special Ed, high schools, middle schools, etc., and
3) The district plans to offer to rehire over two-thirds of the teachers who have been fired. Many of those who are really not in danger of losing their jobs are spending their summer vacation pounding the pavement, looking for work, when they would rather be doing something else.