Friday, September 23, 2011

Modesto Bee: Modesto area schools rehiring laid-off teachers

Good news has Modesto schools rehiring laid-off teachers

By early counts, Modesto City Schools has more students than it expected, good news for its bottom line and for dozens of laid-off teachers.

"Everybody's back," said Modesto Teachers Association President Dana Filippi on Wednesday. Out of 67 or so teachers laid off in June 2010, roughly 30 were rehired last year. As of this week, all but a handful of K-12 teachers who went elsewhere or chose to stay home have their jobs back, he said.

In fact, the district is hiring about 14 more elementary teachers, confirmed Craig Rydquist, associate superintendent of human resources. Interviews and screenings are happening this week, he said.

Rydquist said the openings drew 250 applicants, many applying for multiple jobs. "We had more than100 apply for each position," he said.

The enrollment excitement, to be clear, is not because the district grew. It is because the district did not shrink. The number of students is essentially flat.

Modesto City Schools overall has 30,097 students. It gained five, in this month's enrollment figures.

The district expected, however, to lose about 260 students, after a trend of losing 300 to 900 for the past several years, noted Dennis Snelling, director of business services.

"We added seven kindergarten and first-grade classes because of the size of the increase in enrollment compared to a year before. We also increased in the number of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders," Snelling said.

The news is a significant boost for the district's financial picture, though it will need to pull millions of dollars from reserves to make it through the school year.

The added attendance will bring in an additional $30 per day per student, or potentially $1.4 million over the year, said Julie Chapin, the district's chief business official.

Modesto Superintendent Pam Able said two years of fresh young faces is a high spot.

"In kindergarten — last year as well — we had to add several classes. If this trend holds, we may be seeing an end to declining enrollment, which would be a very good thing," Able said.

The teachers association's Filippi said the news is welcome. "You can bemoan the budget, but there's a lot of good things happening in Modesto," he said.

Other public school districts report their numbers are also better than last year.

Turlock Unified's enrollment is slightly up. The district had about 13,700 students in 2010-11 and has 43 more regular education students now than at this time last year, said Mike Trainor, Turlock's assistant superintendent of business services.

Ceres Unified has about 100 more students than last year, Superintendent Scott Siegel said. The district has grown to be almost as large as Turlock with roughly 12,600 students.

Oakdale Unified reports it has 5,324 students as of Monday, a slight increase compared with last year.
In the Salida Union district, with about 2,700 students, kindergarten enrollment was 30 higher than projected, allowing the district to hire back one teacher, said Superintendent Twila Tosh.

"All other grade levels came in exactly as projected," she said.

Keyes Union, with 1,100 students, has gained 80 students this year, said Superintendent Karen Poppen.
Some of the increase may be coming from private schools, which lost students in the down economy, state figures show. The California Department of Education does not have numbers for this school year, but its records show a steady decline since 2006-07, when 5,467 students attended 44 private schools in Stanislaus County.

By the end of 2010-11, the number of students had dropped by nearly a quarter, to 4,179 reported attending 34 private schools countywide. The figures are for schools with more than six students.

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