Students at Nova High School walked out of class Tuesday to protest the anticipated loss of two teachers.
It’s part of what Seattle Public Schools is calling staffing adjustments. According to the office of Councilmember Kshama Sawant, 33 teachers will ‘be displaced from their jobs.’
The district says no teachers will lose their jobs or contracts, but will be moved to meet current enrollment distributions. SPS also noted a looming $7.5 million budget shortfall.
That means some schools will see an increase, while others like Nova, will lose positions.
“Nova is a good school, and it’s helped me a lot,” said Baron Koster, who participated in the march Tuesday. “It really helped me get focused back into my education, and that’s because of the teachers.”
Several students said the teachers feel like family.
“If we lose any of our teachers, we lose our family, and we lose our hope,” said student Charity Hallmon.
“We understand that any change to staffing and school schedules is frustrating for staff and families. A race and equity lens was used to support our schools with the highest need. While the need was greater than our available resources, we were able to stabilize some staffing and minimize greater disruptions for some schools.
For example, NOVA. They should have had 2.8 [full-time equivalent positions] pulled based on their student enrollment counts. They were mitigated and the pull was reduced to 2.0 FTE.
This year we don’t have as much financial flexibility to keep schools whole and pay for staff at under-enrolled schools. We need to move teachers to schools with higher than anticipated enrollment. This is not a reduction in force or a cut, teachers will still have contracts."
Student Eowyn Morningstar said the cuts more significantly impact schools that serve LGBTQ youth or students of color.
“It feels like they’re targeting us because we run things differently, because we don’t follow their social norms,” Morningstar said.
And the group believes the loss of two teachers could have larger impacts at the school.
“They’ve been more family to me than some of my own family members,” said Morningstar. “I feel I can trust them completely and I know they’ll always be there for me.”
To read more about the re-allocation of teachers, including the full list, click here.
