Not sitting still for cuts
By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News
Dramatizing the impact of looming layoffs, teachers placed nearly 3,000 empty chairs over an entire city block in front of L.A. Unified headquarters Monday, each seat representing a classroom instructor, nurse or counselor facing job cuts. The elaborate scene was set up to mark the legal deadline for all teachers and school support staff to receive preliminary notification if there job is at risk for the following school year. Statewide some 22,000 pink slips were mailed out to educators by Monday, including nearly 2,300 teachers, and 600 nurses, counselors and librarians at Los Angeles Unified School District. “After 6 years of being dedicated to my job, 180 days a year, rain or shine, with paper and supplies or not, they are going to tell me I cannot teach... why?” asked Trinidad Hernandez, a fifth-grade teacher at Sunny Brae Avenue Elementary School, who received her pink slip notice late last week. (more...)