The Berkeley Unified School District has given final layoff notices for all nine Berkeley LEARNS Afterschool Program coordinators, among other classified employee reduction notices.<\/p>\n
BUSD proposed to restructure the LEARNS program \u2014 which supports students academically, culturally and recreationally after the traditional school day ends until 6 p.m., according to the BUSD website \u2014 to function without coordinators at a School Board meeting April 15.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you\u2019re gonna lose quality leadership,\u201d said Evan Adorador, the LEARNS coordinator at BUSD\u2019s Emerson Elementary School. \u201cI think you\u2019re gonna lose the benefit of having direct supervisors on site, so if any kind of issues, whether it\u2019s a staff problem or a parent problem, the person\u2019s supervisor is going to be off campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
The staffing proposal A, presented in the school board meeting, included 12 supervisors \u2014 one at each BUSD elementary school \u2014 and three \u201cauditors\u201d who would each manage the administrative tasks for the LEARNS program at four schools. According to Adorador, the three auditor positions have also been referred to as \u201ccompliance monitors.\u201d<\/p>\n
School Board director and clerk Jennifer Shanoski cited budget concerns for the potential staffing changes. The staffing proposal that included 12 coordinator roles would violate compliance with the state After School Education and Safety grant, according to the school board meeting presentation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will say that the Board takes its fiduciary and governance responsibilities very seriously and is concerned that public education should be fully funded,\u201d said School Board president Mike Chang, in an email. \u201cThis principle includes the retention of all employees to the extent possible in order to effectuate BUSD\u2019s student centered mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adorador alleged that most LEARNS coordinators will likely be demoted to the position of specialist. Coordinators supervise staff, manage administrative tasks such as ensuring accurate student attendance recording and work directly with students and families, according to Adorador.<\/p>\n
Anita Rayyan is the LEARNS coordinator at Sylvia Mendez Elementary School, which includes a two-way English and Spanish language immersion program. They alleged that if they lose their position, the school risks losing its only Spanish-speaking after-school program leader.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only is Sylvia Mendez going to be losing a manager and not only is it going to be losing the language skill that allows us to communicate with families and enroll in-need families and meet the needs of our Spanish-speaking students, it\u2019s gonna lose stability,\u201d Rayyan said.<\/p>\n
Shanoski urged individuals concerned about the layoff and reduction notices to push for the full funding of Proposition 98, which establishes a minimum funding level for state K-12 schools and community colleges.<\/p>\n
Final layoff and reduction notices were given to employees by May 14, according to a school board meeting resolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaking decisions like we have to make on nights like tonight are the worst part of this job,\u201d Shanoski said in the May 6 school board meeting. \u201cIt\u2019s really challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Berkeley Unified School District has given final layoff notices for all nine Berkeley LEARNS Afterschool Program coordinators,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[9397,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-321141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-local-schools","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}