Several hundred students at Schurz High School on the Northwest Side staged a four-hour walkout Monday to protest the firing of four new teachers.
Officials said the teachers lost their jobs because Schurz had lower enrollment this fall than projected.
Holding posters and chanting for the return of the teachers, throngs of students stretching over two blocks circled around Schurz as Chicago police and school security officials looked on.
Last week, students at Julian High School on the Far South Side were involved in a similar protest after it lost 10 teachers.
“If it’s happening in more than one school, they must know it’s a problem,” said Schurz junior Aaron O’Neal. “We’re fighting for our teachers, for the teachers that do care.”
Districtwide, 56 high school and 11 elementary school teachers were sent letters informing them that their jobs had ended due to lower-than-expected enrollment figures, said Mike Vaughn, a Chicago Public Schools spokesman. An additional 35 vacant positions were cut, he said.
At the same time, about 35 vacancies have opened up at other high schools, Vaughn said.
This year’s enrollment at Schurz is 2,050, about 150 fewer than district officials had anticipated. At Julian the district had expected 1,911 students, but only 1,688 enrolled this year.
Vaughn said that even though district officials try to plan teacher levels accurately based on anticipated enrollment, many high school students transfer after hiring levels have been set. And while the overall high school enrollment has been rising, figuring out where students will attend has become more difficult, he said.
The majority of the cuts occurred on the South Side, where the district has been giving students more options in the form of Renaissance 2010 schools, charter schools, military academies and other specialized high school alternatives.
Also, more students are choosing to travel longer to get to schools they prefer. Vaughn said that on average it takes district officials about a month to get “hard” enrollment figures. Teachers were notified of the cuts last week.
“We staff schools for the first day based on the numbers we think will show up,” Vaughn said. “We don’t like to close positions once the school year starts, but given the fact that we are in a very tight budget situation, we have to stick to the staffing formula very closely.”
He said two of the laid-off Schurz teachers have already found positions at nearby Foreman High School, which had more students than the district had planned.
District officials met with the other teachers to try to help place them in new jobs as well.
Vaughn said principals in each of the schools decide who will be let go and often fight for their teachers. At both Schurz and Julian, the district initially planned to trim two additional teachers until the schools’ principals persuaded them to keep those jobs, he said.
That mattered little to the students marching outside Schurz, who boisterously defended the departing teachers.
“Obviously these are kids who are, first and foremost, interested in learning, and that’s a great thing,” Vaughn said. “I certainly understand them being upset about teachers having to go teach somewhere else.
“In a different financial setting, we might be in a better position … if we weren’t so tight and we didn’t have to cut and scrap so hard every year to balance our budget.”
Although the Chicago Teachers Union does not condone student walkouts, union officials said they are considering filing grievances against the district for failing to notify teachers by Oct. 1, the 20th day of the current school year, as required under the school code, said Colleen Dykas, grievance coordinator for the union.
The district is also bound by collective-bargaining guidelines and must use seniority as a guideline, Dykas said.
Some students at Schurz have noticed that some class sizes have increased as classes have been combined after the teachers were let go, said Alejandra Pinon, a senior.
“There were only 18 in a class, and now there’s over 30 students. They were the [teachers] that cared,” said Pinon, 17.
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csadovi@tribune.com
