Just when you thought your children were all settled in their routine at school, the shuffling of teachers continues in the San Diego Unified School District.
“It is a numbers game! Your voices need to be heard to make a difference,” parent Kurt Meeder said to other parents Wednesday outside Spreckels Elementary School in University City. The school is slated to lose one teacher due to lower than projected enrollment, and parents say they will fight the move.
The parents say the loss of just one teacher will have a ripple effect on most, if not all, the 600 students at Spreckels. They say 25 percent will have to move to a combination class where two grade levels are combined. Other students, they say, would be shuffled to make room for the changes.
“We're very sympathetic,” said SDUSD spokesperson Ursula Kroemer. She explained the district must rely on projections until the enrollment settles. Then, it must make sure class size ratios are contractually correct.
But Spreckels’ parents say the district needs to consider factors other than numbers. Spreckels is in program improvement, and has many free and reduced lunch students learning English, explained one parent.
Kroemer says the district did look at other criteria.
“It is not cut and dried,” she said.
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She says the district did not relocate staff if in doing so, the majority of classes became combination classes. At Spreckels, she says just three combo classes will be created out of 22 classrooms.
Besides, she says, another school is in need.
“Teachers who are being reassigned from one school are reassigned to a new school, so they’ll be welcomed with open arms because they are needed at that school,” Kroemer said.
