Yelm teachers union ‘blindsided’ by district sending layoff notices to a third of teaching staff
Tasha Johnson, a Yelm High School teacher and the co-president of the Yelm Education Association, said she and other teachers were blindsided by the district’s decision to send layoff notices that could eliminate more than 200 positions.
Johnson said the union wasn’t notified until May 10 just how deep the budget cuts would be. And she doesn’t understand why the superintendent and school board didn’t explore program cuts before issuing layoff notices to more than a third of Yelm’s teaching staff.
She said staff knew that if the local tax levy failed twice, then they would lose some staff.
“To find out that it was 122 (teachers) last Friday, we were blindsided,” Johnson said. “At no point was a number shared at a school board meeting.”
She said the cuts include not just teachers but counselors, nurses, speech language pathologists, support staff and more.
Johnson said the Yelm Education Association repeatedly asked to be part of decision making about where to make cuts. She said they were told by district leadership that everything was on the table. But so far, programs haven’t been touched.
District leadership hosted a community forum Thursday evening to discuss cuts to solve the $15 million budget deficit left when voters turned down district property tax levy proposals in February and April. The second tax proposal was turned down by a vote of 3,115 no to 3,054 yes on April 23.
Johnson said the purpose of Thursday night’s meeting was to review budget priority survey results and gather ideas on what programs might need to be modified or cut.
But she believes the district has already decided where to make deeper cuts.
“There’s clearly been some program decisions made, and we were not included in that conversation,” she said. “We haven’t been made aware of them as union leadership.”
Johnson said the whole plan has been confusing. She said she doesn’t understand why leadership didn’t start by making cuts that don’t directly impact classrooms. And she questions why Yelm isn’t getting more state funding for basic education.
“The Yelm School District was already underfunded by 21 teachers this school year,” she said. “We already didn’t have enough people, and now we have even less. I’m not sure how that is in the best interest of students.”
The next school board meeting is May 23.
This story was originally published May 17, 2024 at 4:01 PM.
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