Teachers are on and off at least once a year, and I am not referring to summer time.
If there is any move that so depresses teacher morale, it is the yearly March ritual of receiving a layoff notice in the mailbox.
Teachers have grown accustomed to this ritual, sadly. In a large number of professions, the employee does not have to rack his brains wondering if he will have a job next year because of unforeseen budget cuts. Only in the teaching profession, which tenures teachers after two or three years with life-time job security, do district employers have to resort to Reduction-in-Force schedules, arbitrary time tables, and union agreements which protect teachers with the longest service, regardless of their qualifications.
The state needs to lay off these lay off notices. Nothing more damages the stable fiber of a school, and the stability needed by students, than dismissing en masse the available number of teachers, only to hire back a certain number when the final budget numbers are made available to school districts.
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