Layoffs Strike at Heart of School

By Mary Ellen Flannery

There are 11 teachers at El Crystal Elementary School, a small school in San Bruno, California, south of San Francisco. And this month, more than half of them – as well as the school’s sole support person — will be laid off because of budget cuts to education.

“It’s just awful,” says Sarah Hypes, a first-grade teacher at El Crystal and one of the ‘magnificent seven,’ as their principal calls them, who won’t be returning. “This is my third year here and the school is like a family. We’re really close. Everybody knows each other and we’re all on the same page educationally.”

Every one of these staff members is an important part of the school’s culture as a technology demonstration school, says El Crystal’s principal Skip Johnson. Every one of them has contributed to its rising academic success with its very diverse group of learners. In 2008, for the first time, El Crystal was recognized by the state of California as a “distinguished school” – and it’s hard to imagine starting all over again, Johnson says.

Of course, these seven teachers aren’t alone. This year, unless Congress steps in to support the Education Jobs Fund, which would provide $23 billion in emergency funding, more than 300,000 teachers and support professionals will lose their jobs. Class sizes will soar; unemployment ranks will swell; and, most of all, the students will lose out.

WHAT ELSE IS LOST
“I just think it’s going to be really hard for the kids,” says Melissa Trudell, a tenured first-grade teacher at El Crystal who also lost her job. “Here are these seven faces that they know – and they won’t be there anymore.”

And they can’t possibly get the same attentive service from the remaining teachers – or any incoming educators who might replace the pink-slipped seven. To cut costs, class sizes at El Crystal are expected to grow from the low 20s to 30-plus in each classroom. Multi-age classrooms are likely.

“It’s about the loss of one-on-one time with kids who have high needs,” says third-grade teacher Seanna Vail, who will return next year. “My main concern is, how will I meet the needs of these children?”

“You only have one chance with these kids,” says Vail. “If they don’t learn to read in third-grade, we know they have a much greater likelihood of dropping out. It’ll just get harder and harder for them… And I don’t care how good of a teacher you are, when you have 30-plus kids of varying abilities, somebody is going to get left behind and it just kills me that these little people are not going to get what they need.”

El Crystal serves about 240 students – more than half are Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islanders, and about one-quarter are English Language Learners. But, with an innovative focus on technology, which El Crystal’s teachers enthusiastically support, the school’s Academic Performance Index scores have soared during the past five years from the low-700s to more than 850.

It wasn’t an overnight success. El Crystal’s teachers point to shared planning and weekly meetings, hundreds of hours of professional development that they attended arm-in-arm, and the focused development of specific technology standards for each grade so that grade-level transitions could be seamless. “What’s really successful here – and the sad part about the whole thing – is the staff. We’re very cohesive in our instruction, all on the same page,” said first-grade teacher Melissa Trudell, a tenured teacher who also is losing her job.

The singular language of El Crystal – the podcasts with kids, the Mouse Squad after-school program, the shared focus that happens when a dozen people set their hearts to the same mission – all will be lost this summer. Even if some of the laid-off teachers are replaced, and that’s likely, they might need years before they can talk the walk here.

Meanwhile, the seven will report for their last day of school on June 10. And then they don’t know what’s next. “I’m one of those people who can’t see themselves doing anything else but teaching,” says Trudell. “My last resort is to be a nanny, because at least that’s something to do with kids, but I hope I get another teaching job.”

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2. Facing Mass Layoffs, NEA Members Demand Congress Act
3. Education Jobs Fund Passes Key Hurdle in House
4. “I thought I’d stay forever.”
5. Educators Teach Congress the Meaning of ‘Layoff’