- New date for the School District Budget/cuts showdown is Tuesday, 5:30, in the cafetorium of Lin Howe School, 4100 Irving Pl.
With the fiscal strictures of a City Hall rental agreement beating down on their besieged heads like a scorching noonday sun in the desert, members of the School Board ran out of time last night before they could vote on whether to axe approximately 50 School District employees, including 19.2 teaching slots.
The antic-climactic letdown of “time is up” felt like the projector snapping off in a movie theatre at the juncture of the juiciest frames.
Before what surely was the largest (mainly student/teacher) crowd in Council Chambers’ history — stacked 6 deep in one doorway and thickly lining three of the four walls — the Board merely postponed the inevitability of Doomsday.
Regardless of when, all of the previously announced proposed cuts are expected to be executed at the next meeting.
And as Board President Scott Zeidman often swiftly adds, “They also always can be rescinded.”
Using recent Culver City history as a guide, a peanut-sized number may actually lose their employment. In the past three years, only 10 teachers have been uncoupled because of budget cuts.
While hordes of protestors — anguished teachers, vulnerable employees and distraught students, all vividly garbed in scarlet tee-shirts demanding to know “Who’s Next?” — will spend the next few days withdrawing from last night’s emotional high, the real High Noon has been posted:
Tuesday afternoon, 5:30, in the cafetorium of Lin Howe School, Irving Place, next door to the School District quarters.
Even at this late hour, two months before the end of the school term and weeks before the state/school budget is frozen, numerous variables are in play that could affect the final and irreversible layoff total.
What Could Influence Board?
Concessions by the unions, teacher retirements (7, unofficially, have been reported so far) and the liquid state of the Sacramento budget are among the factors that will determine the official layoff number.
Since last night was supposed to be the last roundup before the not-always-predictable School Board vote, the teacher/activist camp roared into Council Chambers, tongues blazing. A good thing Fire Chief Chris Sellers was listening to the Dodger game because the Chambers capacity of 199 was wadded up like a spitball and kicked under the nearest tilting seat.
About 300 persons were shoehorned into the stadium-style setting, and 299 would not have escaped in time in case of an emergency. They were so snugly bunched one standee, between coughs, said he could list all 15 items that the 6 people closest to him ate — and breathed — for dinner.
Between them, Teachers Union President David Mielke and Classified Union President Debbie Hamme mobilized all advocates who could crawl or move.
The golden payoff was that the dozens who spoke — mainly pleading to save their own jobs, but others just as eloquently attesting to the value of their colleagues — gave the performances of their lifetimes.
Myles of Speechmaking
Cornell Myles, a hulking, elegant 17-year employee of the Security Dept., gave a brilliant, poignant speech that an enterprising marketer should package and promote as a nationwide motivational tool. Mr. Myles’s extemporaneous rhetorical tears could have melted a cement wall.
He said “I love my job” with the ringing power and authority of American drones creasing the skies of the Middle East.
Just like Mr. Myles, three secretaries from the Adult School, sharing the podium simultaneously, clung to their dignity while tastefully asking Board members to find a small space in their hearts to preserve their hours.
Mark Reyes, Supervisor of Food Services for the District, library clerk Stella Smith, heating-air conditioning specialist Robert Rodriguez, locksmith Robert Gray III should be recommended for teaching speech classes if their jobs wind up on the cutting room floor. They were as exceptional, as memorable, as Mr. Myles.
All having drained themselves, their efforts stand to be wiped out, at least temporarily, at Tuesday’s School Board meeting because none of the pathos, no matter how valid, alters the lack of funds.
Nothing Changes?
The coldest assessment from the School Board is that last night’s pleadings took the form of this afternoon’s fleeting clouds — soon they will float out of sight.
Mr. Mielke’s smiling face at the end of the evening betrayed his feeling of victory.
He was asked: Did the one-week postponement of the cuts vote only delay the inevitable or is the rescheduling a good thing?
“This was all very positive,” he shot back quickly. “A lot of people came out tonight and said to the Board, ‘Wait a minute. We don’t agree with the cuts you are making. Step back. Take another look, and make cuts further away from the kids.’
“As to what is next, we will have to wait and see. But I am more confident than I was at the start of the evening.”
