District 219 Lets 10 Tenured Teachers Go

Ten tenured teachers in Niles Township High School District 219 officially have been told that their contracts will not be renewed for next year as part of a restructuring plan, despite the impassioned pleas of students, parents and fellow teachers.

In a 5-0 vote Monday night, the District 219 board approved the reduction in force of six teachers in the physical welfare department and four teachers in the department of applied science and technology. Two non-tenured teachers also were notified that they are not going to be invited to return, and the positions of three retiring support staff members will be eliminated when they retire at the end of the year.

Many of the comments from parents and students were directed at the particular teachers on the list: Andrea Davis, Angela Hankes, Brenda Houston and Louis Metallo of the applied science and technology department and Heather Fitzgerald, Ariel Hurwitz-Greene, Yoon Lee, Nicole Reynolds, Samuel Smith and Terri Vanderjeugdt from the physical welfare department.

“Teachers are more than the people who tell me things to make me learn,” said Reny Mathew, a senior at Niles North High School. “They inspire me.”

Board president Robert Silverman pointed out that even though the district plans to go ahead with the restructuring, the teachers who were notified that they will not be renewed are not necessarily going to be out of their jobs. Just how the cuts will be implemented is a subject that is being bargained with the teachers’ union, he said. However, the Illinois School Code and the existing teacher contract require the teachers to be notified now, Silverman said. The contract requires teachers with the least seniority to be cut, Silverman added.

For example, last year the district notified several tenured teachers that their contracts would not be renewed, but after meetings with the union, all of them remain employed. Several non-tenured teachers were let go instead, Silverman said.

Board member Jeffrey Greenspan agreed with Silverman's assessment, saying he expects the final list of teachers who do not return to look much different from the list voted on Monday night.

“We hope we can arrive at a solution that will make the impact as minimal as possible,” Greenspan said.

The restructuring plan calls for health – now a one-semester stand-alone course in the physical welfare department – to be folded into sophomore physical education, reducing the physical welfare requirement from nine semesters to eight, and for the elimination of some courses in the department of applied science and technology, with the understanding that their content would be covered in remaining courses.

Applied science and technology includes classes ranging from child development and fashion design to business law and automotive classes.

The plan increases offerings in English and math, but overall, it calls for the elimination of the equivalent of 10 teaching positions and will save the district about $1 million next year.

Pankaj Sharma, Tim Miller and Steve Grossman spoke for the  Niles Township Federation of Teachers and pointed out that the district has more than $110 million in reserves, and said the district should use that cushion to soften the blow, cutting positions as teachers retire.

“We as teachers are not saying no to all changes,” Sharma said. “We have 35 teachers retiring in the next four years.”

But the point is not simply to cut teachers, Silverman said. It is to put the resources of the district into the core areas of English and math, he said.

“All these changes we are making, we don’t think there will be any decrease in student outcomes,” Silverman said. “We think there will be improvement.”

The district already has the second-highest operating expenditure per pupil in the state, $21,990 in the 2008-09 school year. The restructuring plan will not cut into that, but it will slow its rate of growth, Silverman said.