Post a comment about the budget cuts at your school on our interactive comment map. more »
GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools
not so fast
October 15, 2009
Poised to lay off school aides, city is hit with a restraining order
A day before the Department of Education had planned to dismiss over 500 school aides, a judge has issued a temporary restraining order preventing the layoffs from going through.
State Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead ruled today that before the city laid off hundreds of “the most vulnerable employees,” the Court had to ensure that the layoffs did not violate the state’s constitution and the education law.
Officials from DC 37, the union that represents the school aides, argued in court yesterday that the city was laying off civil servants in order to replace them with less expensive temporary workers who are not given health benefits.
They also said that the layoffs would disproportionally affect schools that serve low-income students. According to union officials, the Mosaic Preparatory Academy (P.S. 375), where 90 percent of the students quality for free or reduced lunch, is set to lose all of its school aides. In contrast, P.S. 6, where roughly 6 percent of students are at the poverty line, is hiring 17 teacher aides. A breakdown of the school aide layoffs at each school was not made available.
According to city officials, savings from the layoffs would come to about $13 million.
“The loss of school aides at schools like Mosaic Preparatory Academy (P.S. 375) in East Harlem, which is allegedly a particularly overcrowded school, will have an immediate, irreparable impact upon the safety of New York City school children,” Edmead wrote in her decision.
The union said that the city was adding insult to injury by allowing parent associations to pay for school aides, a battle that parents fought and won this summer. D.C. 37’s lawyers claimed that allowing parent-paid aides gives preference to wealthier school districts while harming schools in poorer districts that are slated to lose more school aides and don’t have parent associations that can afford to pay their own.
“We believe that the lower court decision was in error, and we will be taking an immediate appeal,” said Daniel Gomez-Sanchez, a lawyer for the city. The Department of Education refused to comment.
-
October 15th, 2009 6:50 pm
500 aides making what, $20/hr?
So how much are we talking?
500 aides x $20/hr x 2000 hrs/year (if full time, and full year) = $20 million?I know times are tough, but they are toughest on the neediest. Kids and aides both.
And relative to a $22 BILLION budget, we’re talking less than ONE TENTH OF ONE PERCENT.
And that’s BEFORE estimating incremental city services that might be needed BY laid off aides.
For shame.
Penny wise and Klein foolish.
-
October 15th, 2009 9:05 pm
[...] Poised to lay off school aides, city is hit with a restraining … [...]
-
October 15th, 2009 11:00 pm
The decision points to overcrowding at one school but not the other. PS 6 is at 127% of capacity with Kindergarten class sizes of 28 in a clear and willful violation of the union collective bargaining agreement. Is there an “irreparable impact” to these children?
-
October 16th, 2009 12:58 pm
When DOE and electeds and parent reps worked out the deal for in-class non-teaching help, I recall hearing that the deal was pending the sign-on of DC 37 (not in the room at the time).
Was DC 37 ever looped in before the school year started?
If the union WAS looped in and agreed, shame on them for having it both ways above.
If the union was NOT looped in, shame on DOE for not dotting i’s and crossing DC’s.
If the union WAS looped in — and objected — shame on DOE for steamrolling them.
Though per Patrick I am glad to see the aides in the classes that Klein swamped.
But let’s stop blaming the parents. Parents didn’t turn the schools into sardine factories. Kleinberg did. And Kleinberg is laying off the aides.
-
October 17th, 2009 6:26 pm
they do not make anywhere near 20.00 an hour.more like 12.00 - 14.00 per hour.shame on this city.get rid of the contracted workers and temps.stop all the studies and consulting.
-
October 17th, 2009 8:41 pm
yes,
Thank you for the information. (Also, I know they don’t work 2,000 hrs/yr.)These adjustments make the case for the aides all the stronger.
Call ir half a tenth of a percent. And double the shame.
-
October 17th, 2009 8:46 pm
It was a good idea for DC37 to take this to court. The DOE even lost on Friday when they went to court to have the decision overturned. This will buy some time for those school aides. I wonder what the DOE will do or should I say who else will get layoff notices next, especially with the governor’s education cuts. The DOE cut a lot of secretaries in June. All the secretaries that had sub licenses were notified that they wouldn’t have jobs in September.
The DOE has to stop paying outside contractors. The money they spent this year alone on studies, et cetera, could pay the salaries of the school aides they were looking to let go.
Why doesn’t Bloomberg pay for Klein’s salary out of his own pocket since he has so much money and Klein is Bloomberg’s puppet anyway.
Leave a Reply
Mapping the Budget Cuts
7 Comments
Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack