Every single DPS teacher gets a pink slip

**English** · April-14-11, 10:15 PM

http://www.freep.com/article/2011041...sses-uncertain

Tonight, I am thinking about DetroitTeacher, DetroitFats, and other DPS staff on the forum who already gave $10,000 of their contracted salary back to the district as a "loan." I am furious. I wish there was something I could do to help, but it's like trying to stop a moving train.

**English** · April-14-11, 10:17 PM

And yes, I know that my thread title is grammatically incorrect. I was typing fast... and shaking. I'm more upset over this than I thought I would be.

DetroitDad · April-14-11, 10:37 PM

Yeah, I have various family members who are facing job cuts, or face striking when it is illegal to do so in Michigan.

For what it's worth, trains have been stopped before.

**EL Jimbo** · April-14-11, 10:47 PM

As a husband of a teacher [[not DPS) this makes me shudder. My wife teaches in a VERY well to do school district and even they are facing fiscal trouble. This won't end with Detroit. It's sad to see. My wife, who loves her job, is very good at it, and works very hard is, after one year, considering looking for other employment simply because, to quote her, "this shit isn't worth it". I can't say I blame her.

**jtf1972** · April-14-11, 10:49 PM

I am sorry to hear this for all those affected.

What does this mean for the students? Is there class tomorrow? Next week? The rest of this school year? The article doesn't make a great deal about the details clear...

Is the timing due to a budgetary wall that was come up against where continuing was impossible, or is this a timing issue to hold the power?

**RaumVogel** · April-14-11, 11:14 PM

Next round of budget cuts: All schools are closed. Home schooling is mandatory. You take a test to graduate elementary school, junior high and you're G.E.D. to graduate high school. No one can afford gas, so all college will have to be cyber-schools.

**313WX** · April-14-11, 11:26 PM

The really interesting part is these pink slips went out just in time for spring break.

Hmmm, it's definitely going to be a rocky week.

**SlipperyPencil** · April-14-11, 11:36 PM

Robert Bobb is an f'n idiot. This man gets paid $450,000/year and has squandered millions on his crony consultants. Yet the financial situation of the DPS keeps getting worse.

Over the past four months, I've had numerous meetings with the financial analysis for the DFT. We came up with numerous ideas to resolve the DPS's $300 million financial crisis. The DFT loved our ideas, the school board loved our ideas. The DFT meet w/ Bing's office. They loved the ideas. The DFT meet w/ Snyder's office and eventually w/ Snyder himself. They loved the ideas. Bobb has refused to implement a single one of them, instead sticking to his "nuclear" plan to totally destroy the school district.

Maybe Bobb believes implementing the free suggestions from the DFT would prove that the million in salary he's collected the past two years and the millions paid to his consultants was a complete waste of money.

**Lowell** · April-15-11, 01:37 AM

If this wasn't so pathetically sad and my grammar so pathetic your title [the grammar of which I corrected] would be the source of some amusement. [Are married teachers exempt from pink slipping or just singles?]

I have friends who have taught in Detroit schools under very difficult circumstance, with poor facilities, in the face of physical endangerment and in over-sized classes with needy children. Yet they have persevered with love and patience and have seen many of their students go onto success and happiness.

And what do they get for all that dedication and effort? A freakin' pink slip.

And what does Detroit get for taking care of the region's poor, homeless, felons, disabled and rejected? Scorn, scolding,derision, high insurance rates and taxes. Its beautiful school buildings are ruins and its dedicated teachers are being thrown out on the street. Shame on the state of Michigan which is ultimately responsible for this neglect of its greatest city. Michigan will be sick as long as Detroit is sick.

We can bail out Wall Street, but we can't save our schools.

lilpup · April-15-11, 01:50 AM

There have been other recent instances of en masse pink slipping in the region. It just seems so dramatic because the notices get sent district wide.

**mikefmich** · April-15-11, 02:27 AM

I'm flabbergasted.
Not overly informed/educated on Bobb nor past interactions between him & the DFT.

But what I see on the surface here, this is just insane. To think at one time Detroit's School system was one of the countries best and drew people here many many moons ago, and now it's at this point.

**DetroitTeacher** · April-15-11, 05:50 AM

The layoff won't be effective until August 30th. That way, we can't collect unemployment. This will mean for the kids uncertainty about next year and who will be teaching them. The district won't get their act together and have teachers in place prior to the middle of August and then, as in the past, that might not happen either.

I'm a good teacher. My kids will tell you that. My former students will tell you that. I am pretty confident that I'll have a job next year, I'm just not sure I'll be able to live on what they want to pay me to do it. The timing is a power thing. So are the pink slips. With the talk of yanking our certificates, I don't think too many will strike. I know I won't. I LOVE teaching and it's what I set out to do with my life. I'm not ready to give it up just yet so I can't afford to lose my certification. I spent too much money and time to get where I am and I think I'd be clinically depressed if I couldn't teach. I love my kids in DPS. I don't think I'd love kids as much elsewhere. There is just something about DPS kids that makes my job fun, interesting, heartbreaking, and worthwhile. I'm not ready to give up on them so i guess I'll continue to fight the fight...for my kids.

Originally Posted by jtf1972

I am sorry to hear this for all those affected.

What does this mean for the students? Is there class tomorrow? Next week? The rest of this school year? The article doesn't make a great deal about the details clear...

Is the timing due to a budgetary wall that was come up against where continuing was impossible, or is this a timing issue to hold the power?

**DetroitTeacher** · April-15-11, 05:56 AM

I haven't received my slip yet. They also reclassified me as a Literacy Coach and I am paid from grant money [[Title II-A) so I am not sure I'll get one because that would mean they'd lose the grant. Don't get me wrong, I am still in the classroom, where I want to be. I'm not supposed to be but it's best for the kids, not having to change teachers in March since they didn't send a replacement for me.

I'll keep everyone informed as to what's going on, from the front line point of view.

LodgeDodger · April-15-11, 06:35 AM

Originally Posted by SlipperyPencil

Robert Bobb is an f'n idiot. This man gets paid $450,000/year and has squandered millions on his crony consultants. Yet the financial situation of the DPS keeps getting worse.

Over the past four months, I've had numerous meetings with the financial analysis for the DFT. We came up with numerous ideas to resolve the DPS's $300 million financial crisis. The DFT loved our ideas, the school board loved our ideas. The DFT meet w/ Bing's office. They loved the ideas. The DFT meet w/ Snyder's office and eventually w/ Snyder himself. They loved the ideas. Bobb has refused to implement a single one of them, instead sticking to his "nuclear" plan to totally destroy the school district.

Maybe Bobb believes implementing the free suggestions from the DFT would prove that the million in salary he's collected the past two years and the millions paid to his consultants was a complete waste of money.

Clarify something for me: Is DPS contractually obligated to send out notices of layoff by a certain date?

I understand your pain, but the reality is that DPS is flat broke. There isn't any money--anywhere.

As far as running DFT budget ideas before the Detroit Board--of course they'd agree with you. They have been against Bobb from the beginning. Add to that, a number of them are incapable of running a school district. This is part of the reason why DPS is in such a financial mess.

Bing's office? Wasn't he in favor of an emergency financial manager?

Snyder? He's the politician who signed the law giving the emergency financial manager all-encompassing control. More than likely, he agreed with you just to get rid of you. He knows that the ultimate decision rests with his guy, Bobb.

I'm sorry DFT is going through such times, really I am. But let's perform a reality check before slamming the district for the notices of layoff. I'm quite sure they don't know how things will look in the fall.

God bless the Detroit Teachers. I pray it won't be as bad as feared.

**Meddle** · April-15-11, 06:41 AM

Originally Posted by RaumVogel

Next round of budget cuts: All schools are closed. Home schooling is mandatory. You take a test to graduate elementary school, junior high and you're G.E.D. to graduate high school. No one can afford gas, so all college will have to be cyber-schools.

Works for me.

lincoln8740 · April-15-11, 07:31 AM

Originally Posted by LodgeDodger

Clarify something for me: Is DPS contractually obligated to send out notices of layoff by a certain date?

I understand your pain, but the reality is that DPS is flat broke. There isn't any money--anywhere.

As far as running DFT budget ideas before the Detroit Board--of course they'd agree with you. They have been against Bobb from the beginning. Add to that, a number of them are incapable of running a school district. This is part of the reason why DPS is in such a financial mess.

Bing's office? Wasn't he in favor of an emergency financial manager?

Snyder? He's the politician who signed the law giving the emergency financial manager all-encompassing control. More than likely, he agreed with you just to get rid of you. He knows that the ultimate decision rests with his guy, Bobb.

I'm sorry DFT is going through such times, really I am. But let's perform a reality check before slamming the district for the notices of layoff. I'm quite sure they don't know how things will look in the fall.

God bless the Detroit Teachers. I pray it won't be as bad as feared.

+1
right on the money

**Zacha341** · April-15-11, 07:55 AM

Robert Bobb plans to use new powers to modify union contracts

http://www.freep.com/article/20110415/NEWS01/104150455/1318/COL01/Robert-Bobb-warns-plan-use-my-new-powers-modify-union-contracts?odyssey=mod|lateststories

**mwilbert** · April-15-11, 07:56 AM

Clarify something for me: Is DPS contractually obligated to send out notices of layoff by a certain date?

Yes, it is required. Of course it isn't necessary to send them to everybody, but it makes it simpler if disturbing to more recipients. In a way, it should make it less disturbing--it is clear there are going to be cuts, and this way no one feels singled out.

One question I have is about the timing. I believe what is required is 60-day notice and if as Detroitteacher says, they wouldn't actually do the layoffs until August 31, why send the notices now? If it were me, I would have waited until after the end of school and not have given the teachers something extra to worry about while they are still in the classroom.

Update: I read the article again and it says the layoff notices are effective July 29th, so they couldn't wait until the end of school. Then one has to wonder why they chose that effective date.

**English** · April-15-11, 08:37 AM

Of course, folks. DPS is "flat broke." Well, isn't the nation broke, too? We can't afford to educate our kids, but we can certainly afford trillion-dollar wars in the Middle East and North Africa. We can afford to do nation building overseas, but screw those pathetic Detroiters. If those kids wanted a fighting chance, they should have had the foresight to be born to more affluent families with options. If those teachers wanted respect, they shouldn't have tried to build a career in a district with incompetent leadership.

Got it. Just had to understand the logic of those supporting the nuclear option for DPS, that's all.

**English** · April-15-11, 09:02 AM

Originally Posted by Lowell

If this wasn't so pathetically sad and my grammar so pathetic your title [the grammar of which I corrected] would be the source of some amusement. [Are married teachers exempt from pink slipping or just singles?]

I have friends who have taught in Detroit schools under very difficult circumstance, with poor facilities, in the face of physical endangerment and in over-sized classes with needy children. Yet they have persevered with love and patience and have seen many of their students go onto success and happiness.

And what do they get for all that dedication and effort? A freakin' pink slip.

And what does Detroit get for taking care of the region's poor, homeless, felons, disabled and rejected? Scorn, scolding,derision, high insurance rates and taxes. Its beautiful school buildings are ruins and its dedicated teachers are being thrown out on the street. Shame on the state of Michigan which is ultimately responsible for this neglect of its greatest city. Michigan will be sick as long as Detroit is sick.

We can bail out Wall Street, but we can't save our schools.

Thanks Lowell for correcting the thread's title. I am emotional about this because I received 3 pink slips from DPS in 2004-2005, and had no intention of ever leaving the district when I received the first. The first made me consider starting my own business [[something I hashed out here back then), the second was the infamous Christmas Eve 2004 round during the Burnley administration and was the final nail in the coffin for me. I was teaching an overload, had just won a grant, and had successfully started a new newsmagazine at the school. I realized that there was zero appreciation for hard workers by the district, and my meeting with then-DFT president Janna Garrison left me in tears. What an awful time.

I immediately began applying for teaching positions and doctoral programs all over the United States and in a few countries overseas. When I received the third pink slip in April '05, I was already set to leave, and everyone at school knew and was sympathetic. I received a recall notice the day before school started in August '05, with that typical DPS belligerent language telling me that I was "legally obligated to return." I drove down from Ann Arbor to Detroit and relished signing the form separating from Detroit Public Schools, a district I thought I'd retire from. By then, I had my job in another district and was in my first semester of my doctoral program.

When people say "it's not about the teachers -- it's about the KIDS" I hope that people realize that the kids and teens are BONDED to good teachers. When I left CT, it did hurt kids because the programs that I ran ended. I could no longer be a day-by-day mentor. My classroom wasn't available during lunch or after school as a refuge. I don't flatter myself to think that I'm irreplaceable, even in the job I hold now [[especially in this job, as there are hundreds of applicants for every faculty position), but when you don't allow good teachers the stability to develop curriculum, programs, and a sense of belonging within a school, and when your child has a plethora of "new" teachers every year, your child DOES suffer.

My generation of DPS teachers is largely gone... and then people wonder where the 250,000 people went. Well, my friends were like me. They are now teaching in Nevada, North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, Arizona... places that are actually attracting new and young people. However, the attack on education is nationwide, and who knows how things will end. Maybe all parents will be required to homeschool like we did in the 18th and early 19th century. That means one parent will have to stay at home, unless we suddenly believe it's OK to leave kids at home by themselves. I'm not sure what that means for single parents or families who desperately need two incomes to survive, but hey... the prevailing attitude these days is that we can't afford anything but war, so they'll just need to figure things out.

**Zacha341** · April-15-11, 09:11 AM

Yep. All of that chaos, instability and uncertainty will really bode well in drawing parents to send or continue their students in DPS... enrollment will drop further, revenue as well, rinse, repeat cycle... final rinse cycle pending it would appear....

Originally Posted by DetroitTeacher

The layoff won't be effective until August 30th. That way, we can't collect unemployment. This will mean for the kids uncertainty about next year and who will be teaching them. The district won't get their act together and have teachers in place prior to the middle of August and then, as in the past, that might not happen either....

**eastsidechris** · April-15-11, 10:17 AM

By contract, the district has to give teachers notification within 60 days of the end of the school year--that's why the pink slips are coming now, even though they won't take effect until the end of August.

Thanks for all the messages of support for the DPS teachers on the board. I know I really appreciate reading them. Like others have stated, I love to teach, I love my kids [[most days) and I feel a real calling to this profession.

But, it's not been fun the last few years wondering if my school will close and if I'll get a pink slip or not. Twice, my school was saved from closing. I don't think we'll survive the cut this time. I've received layoff notices twice in my twelve years in the district and had faith that, logically, I'd be called back by early August--and it happened. I don't know about this year because Robert Bobb is flying by the seat of his pants and even he doesn't really know what will happen come August 29th.

But as I've told the other teachers at my school [[I am our union rep), right now we need to focus on the things we can control: the classes we have in front of us, the quality of our teaching, our grace under fire during this time of chaos in DPS, and putting together our resumes.

I hope to be back at DPS next year, but am prepared to take a job elsewhere, if I can find one. I've got a feeling that most of the people in my age range [[late 30's) are probably thinking the same way--we really don't want to leave these kids, but the time comes when the year-to-year instability of our jobs becomes too much to deal with. It's a sad reality.

After two years on the job, is DPS ultimately that much better with Robert Bobb's financial decisions than it would have been without them [[and him)? I STILL don't have textbooks for all my students, and while it's great that he weeded out the crooks still being paid by the district after they had retired and things of that nature, the lack of textbooks is crime of another kind that the kids are STILL victimized by. Thanks for listening to me vent.

**mwilbert** · April-15-11, 10:22 AM

By contract, the district has to give teachers notification within 60 days of the end of the school year--that's why the pink slips are coming now, even though they won't take effect until the end of August.

That clarifies it. Thanks.

**Baselinepunk** · April-15-11, 10:28 AM

As a person that has worked in or associated with public education for almost twenty years I have to say that one problem is that Administration has always pleaded poverty. Now when it may be true it's kinda hard to take it seriously; ya kinda get burned out on getting beaten over the head and verbally assaulted.

**Det_ard** · April-15-11, 10:43 AM

I feel bad for the teachers [[the good ones) but even worse for the kids who are subjected to a dysfunctional education system that produces relatively few 18 year-olds who are prepared for success in college and life.

There's enough blame to spread around to all involved, but hopefully this will be an opportunity to get rid of incompetent administrators who can't get textbooks in the classroom and put out to pasture the higher-seniority teachers who've stopped effectively teaching long ago and shouldn't be teaching anywhere [[yes, first-hand experience, I've tutored in a few DPS schools).

It's not just DPS that has bad teachers. I'm looking at who my kids might get next year in my well-regarded suburban school district and I'm only satisfied with the quality of 2 of 4 of the second-grade teachers and 1 of 3 of the fourth-grade teachers. I'll be talking to the principal about my concerns and politicking for my choice of teachers but I know that the not-so-good teachers will still be there next year [[seniority) and even if my kids don't get them, someone's kids will. Sucks for those kids but hey, union seniority rules and teacher job security is evidently more important than our kids' education. If teachers really cared about kids more than themselves they'd have changed these rules that keep bad teachers in place at the expense of kids.

BTW, I downloaded my district's compensation spreadsheet and union contract. Average teacher salary is just under $80K/year, with pay for coaching/extracurriculars some earn >$100K, family health coverage costs the district $20K per employee per year, and the health plan charges just $5 for office visits, no co-pay, no deductible, no payroll deduction for health insurance. Teachers gave up a 1% scheduled pay raise recently [[but still got their yearly step increase) and say they've given enough already. They say this to parents who've seen their compensation reduced 30% - 40% in this recession. I say it's time for a parent/taxpayer revolution to protect our kids.