Pink slips go out to 157 Seattle teachers

Teacher Appreciation Week ended with an ironic thud yesterday for Marian Fink and Stephanie Davis: They learned they are being laid off from their jobs teaching at High Point Elementary in West Seattle.

"You kind of brace yourself for something like this, but it's always a complete blow when it ends up happening," said Fink, 26. "I think it's a damn shame that they're losing, all across the district, some of the best teachers that they'll ever see. It's really sickening."

GOT A QUESTION?

The Seattle Public Schools have run up huge deficits. The superintendent quit. What's next? If you have questions for the School Board president, e-mail them to us. We'll try to get answers.

Fink and Davis are among the 157 teachers and 21 counselors, nurses and others being let go as Seattle Public Schools struggles to close a projected budget gap of at least $8.7 million in the 2003-04 academic year.

Some -- perhaps most -- of those who received layoff notices yesterday will be recalled to work in the 47,000-student district once administrators total up retirements and resignations over the summer and find out just how much money they'll get from the upcoming state budget, which the Legislature is expected to resume debating in a special session Monday.

State law requires a school district to notify teachers by May 15 if they aren't guaranteed jobs for the next school year, and districts often apply worst-case scenarios so they aren't stuck paying the contracts of teachers they ultimately don't need.

But Fink, who teaches second grade at High Point, isn't optimistic she'll be rehired by Seattle Public Schools -- or even land a job in another district.

"I feel pretty jaded about the whole thing," she said. "There are (teacher) layoffs going on across the state right now. I feel it's kind of a hopeless case."

Several districts have threatened or announced teacher layoffs to deal with projected budget deficits resulting from expected declines in state support for education, reduced enrollments or other factors.

Seattle schools have been reeling since the disclosure in October of an undiagnosed $35 million budget abscess attributed to shoddy accounting practices, overspending and miscommunications. The snafu led to the resignation of Superintendent Joseph Olchefske announced last month. A district spokeswoman said the hole was filled by tapping fiscal reserves and is unrelated to the layoffs, which were triggered by rising costs and declining state and federal support.

But Fink isn't buying that.

"I blame that ($35 million) debt that never should have happened," she said. "I feel pretty bitter about that."

Davis, 25, wasn't pointing fingers, but she said the situation is a sad one.

"So many people put so much into their work, and they're getting kicked to the curb," she said.

Under the school district's contract with the teachers union, the most recently hired teachers are laid off first. Fink, who moved to Seattle from Pennsylvania, started teaching at High Point four months ago; Davis, a third-grade teacher, is in her first year in the classroom.

High Point principal Cothron Dickey said the layoffs of Fink, Davis and two other teachers devastated the 220-student school, taking more than one-third of the faculty. Their positions, subject to fall enrollment, could be filled by more-senior teachers displaced from administrative positions that have been eliminated or by work-force cuts at other schools.

The School Board this summer will set the final numbers in the 2003-04 budget. Spending in 2002-03 exceeds $440 million. The financial crunch likely will mean fewer programs for students and larger classes.

P-I reporter Gregory Roberts can be reached at 206-448-8022 or gregoryroberts@seattlepi.com

Add P-I Local headlines to