About 40 WCCUSD educators and some students attended Wednesday’s school board meeting to protest the district’s decision to reassign 22 teachers to new classrooms and positions mid-year to fill teacher vacancies. They carried signs that read, “A ‘Band-Aid’ fix for a gaping wound” and “This will hurt our students.”
Kim Moses, who recently took over as West Contra Costa Unified School District’s interim superintendent, said the reassignments are necessary to improve academic outcomes for more than 1,000 students who she said haven’t had a consistent credentialed teacher in their classrooms.
Educators said the change this far into the school year is disruptive to them and their students.
“We have two long-term subs who are at risk of being reassigned, and they are people who have been running these classrooms effectively since the beginning of the year,” said Cal Walters, the math department chair at Richmond High School during public comment. “This is really going to be a disservice to our students.”
WCCUSD is making the changes to help fill 80 teacher vacancies, according to the district’s communication director, Raechelle Forrest. It will still have 58 positions open after the reassignments are completed.
“Many of our classrooms have experienced extended periods without fully credentialed teachers, and while we have worked tirelessly to address this issue, we have now exhausted all other options,” Forrest said.
Those who spoke at the meeting expressed concerns about the impacts on students who have built relationships with their teachers. Speakers also emphasized that there are heightened risks for vulnerable students.
“That’s not a long-term solution,” said Christopher MacLean, a teacher at Dover Elementary School in San Pablo.
Elizabeth Addiego (who goes by “Para”) said she was notified in December that she would be reassigned in January. She said she has worked in the district for 19 years.
“My name is Para — they call me ‘Para todo,’ ” she said. “If you don’t know what to do, you don’t know where to go, come see me, and I’ll get you an answer.”
Many of the speakers from Richmond High commended the impact Addiego has had in her current role, which includes running the budget as the school’s project assistant.
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“Ms. Para is not just a teacher. She is the heart of Richmond High School.”
— A Richmond High School student commending a teacher who is facing a job reassignment half way through the school year.
“Ms. Para is not just a teacher,” said one student. “She is the heart of Richmond High School.”
The district has been struggling to tighten its budget amid decreasing enrollment and low attendance rates — both of which are tied to state dollars. The board will vote on further budget cuts for the upcoming school years at its next meeting on Jan. 29.
“Teachers are required to be endlessly resilient,” said Sam Taylor, part of the Richmond High group, in an emotional plea to the board. “But resilience is not infinite. Resilience requires support.”
According to the district, the reassignments will be finalized by the end of the month.
It’s extremely disheartening. My eighth grader hasn’t had a math teacher all year — just a rotation of subs. We are considering moving her to a better resourced district for high school.
I’m confused about who is being moved where. From the comments from the district, I would have thought they were re-assigned credentialed teachers from non-classroom jobs at the district office to classrooms which are being staffed by uncredentialed teachers. It would have been nice to learn where people like Ms. Para are being re-assigned to – what she has been doing and what she will be doing. Overall, this article simply tells us what was said at the public hearing. I would have liked for the journalist to have dug deeper and brought us more info than this, at least some further explanatory details of what the district did or is doing.