Supt. Patti Jaffe appears confident today that Culver City will surmount a controversial new No Teacher Left Behind law hurriedly pushed through at the end of the June legislative session.
Early popular interpretations of Assembly Bill 114, successfully lobbied, without debate, by the California Teachers Assn., bar districts from laying off teachers during the coming school year.
“We are maintaining our staffing,” says Ms. Jaffe of a district that has let few teachers go, even during the darkest hours of budget crises in recent years. “For us, we are okay. I think this applies more to districts like LAUSD where they fired 5,000 people and only brought back 3,000. That is where the new law will have a big effect.
“We have maintained our staffing, if that is what the key is. What the law says is, ‘you have to maintain staffing and program level commensurate with the last state funding.’ If we adopted our budget based on recommendations of the May Revise (the governor’s update), which is what we did, we already have met that requirement.
“It is a little confusing,” Ms. Jaffe said. “After I read the article about the new law in the L.A. Times a week ago last Sunday, and my reaction was, ‘Oh, my goodness.’”
But what if the School Board determines next winter or spring that it needs to potentially lay off teachers?
“If the state doesn’t get the $4 billion in revenue that it is counting on,” Ms. Jaffe said, “then there could be some changes. The law says it does not mean you can’t prepare a contingency plan.”
Contingency and execution, however, are quite separate concepts.
“In that case, we will just have to sit down and look,” the Superintendent said. “Right now, though, we are fine.”
In response to a question, “I don’t believe we are going to be handcuffed,” Ms. Jaffe said. “But I believe some districts totally will be.
