Optics Again, Scattered Pondering.

So long-term, I don't think it's such a great idea for SFUSD to claim annually that they are laying off 140 administrators.  They're not; they never are.  This year they have pretty much everyone except Garcia on the list of no-renewals.

Still, every year they non-renew-notice 140 or 168 or 100-odd administrators and mention it to the press.  Then they fail to mention the contracts they offer those people in the end.  I think this feeds the idea that administative offices are hugely bloated; if you are not following closely, SFUSD is losing 100+ administrators a year and always has another 100 that can be cut.  It suggests thousands of out-of-the-classroom jobs that don't exist.

Apparently SFUSD only wants 37 elementary layoffs, which is nice from a class-size perspective.  Schoolwise, not so nice (I think the number must be all of the first year teachers in the District?).  That's at least a third of our classroom staff.  (On the other hand, if that's really all they're doing this will be my first year without a certified mail on or around 15 March since I started working in SFUSD.  Huh.)

I'm wondering if there's going to be another round of letters in June for the 60 day window if the budget proposal and tax vote fail.  Certainly the 1 March meeting should be the only Board vote for March, right?  Running another list at the 8 March meeting would be skeevy.

I have this image of our school site and its highly photogenic, television-ready and quoteable educators as the Beckets to the District's King Henry.   Low layoffs or not, going Beyond the Talk means pushing for critical analysis of our decisions from an equity lens.  We'll be pushing that again this year.