In SFUSD, equity means that it's better to lay off 40% of the teachers at your high-needs school than laying off 16% of the teachers at another high-needs school.
In SFUSD, bravery is displayed when one lays off teachers rather than challenging the state to fund education by refusing to meet their budget requirements or cutting Central Office expenses.
Also, it's really mean of teachers to try to make SFUSD feel bad for laying them off. Don't we understand how difficult it is to lay off teachers? It's apparently way worse than actually being laid off.
In principle, I agree that there needs to be some kind of mechanism so that the annual layoffs don't disrupt the southeast side while leaving west side schools untouched. I just find it hard to stomach that protecting staff at certain high-needs schools - certain high-needs schools that have also gotten all kinds of other advantages the rest of us haven't - and therefore making the layoffs even worse at other high-needs schools is some kind of answer.
And the whole "zone" thing seems arbitrary, really. The idea that the issues at, say, Flynn - with its relatively low poverty rate and significant middle-class population - are anything like the issues faced at schools in Hunter's Point strikes me as dishonest. If you're going to prioritize some schools over others, you might at least try to come up with some actual similarities beyond "extra funding" and "location".
Besides, any situation in which teachers without full credentials (er, intern credentials) are protected over teachers with actual credentials...that doesn't just upend seniority. It upends common sense.
I personally should not be laid off, which means I can look forward to another year of staff turnover, training on the fly, instability, stress, and making pink posters for every laid off colleague. What fun.
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