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Slightly more than a dozen schools saw their budgets take a hit as a result of Chancellor Joel Klein’s hiring ultimatum.

In early September, Klein sent an email to principals warning that if they didn’t fill their vacancies by October 30, the money would be taken out of their budgets and returned to Department of Education coffers.

The threat was meant to pressure principals to hire teachers who are still paid by the city but have lost their permanent jobs because of school closings or budget cuts. Some principals had expressed reluctance to hire these teachers and were hoping to wait out the city’s hiring freeze.

In all, only 14 schools had to return the hiring funds to the DOE, said a spokeswoman for the department, Ann Forte. (more…)

Principals union president Ernest Logan is raising questions about Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s threat to take money away from principals who don’t fill their vacancies by Oct. 30.

The point of Klein’s threat, made in an e-mail to principals yesterday and first reported by the Web site Insideschools, is to get principals who might be trying to outlast the hiring freeze to pick up “excessed” teachers from the ATR pool. Those teachers, who currently number more than 1,500, are drawing full salaries even though they don’t have permanent positions in schools. Their salaries are “a fiscal liability we cannot sustain in this budget climate,” Klein said in his letter.

But principals can’t hire teachers who aren’t eligible for their vacancies or who don’t apply for jobs, Logan emphasized in a response today to Klein’s hiring deadline. “We would like to know more about what the DoE will do if appropriate licensing matches are not made or if excessed teachers fail to show up at the recruitment fairs,” he said.

The Department of Education is requiring teachers in the ATR pool to attend borough-based hiring fairs next week, according to an e-mail obtained by union activist Norm Scott. Ann Forte, a DOE spokeswoman, confirmed that the fairs are compulsory for ATRs. (more…)