Indiana's Tippecanoe District to Lay Off Teachers, Librarians

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By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 04/07/2010

Teachers at the Tippecanoe School Corporation are biting nails as 150 layoff notices have gone out to instructors and media specialists across the Indiana school district.

While final decisions won’t be made until later this month or May, the notices were met with concern and sorrow from parents and students, who tried to rally and raise donations—including $175 through Girl Scout cookie sales—which are unlikely to make a dent in the $8 million the district needs to balance its budget.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels made $300 million in school budget cuts in January.

To Teresa Meredith, vice president of the Indiana State Teachers Association, (ISTA) Tippecanoe’s story is one that’s too familiar as many school districts in the state have also begun the process of warning educators, including librarians, their jobs may not be in available next fall.

“Every day we’re hearing of at least one school district that has numbers similar to Tippecanoe,” says Meredith, who notes that the ISTA is the largest of two teachers’ unions in the state. “School districts are sending out more notices than they needed, hoping they might not need to lay off all, but fearing they may because of not knowing what the governor will do.”

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels made $300 million in school budget cuts in January, a “mid-year shocker” that had districts scrambling to excise everything from teaching assistants to custodial staff, Meredith says. With rumors flying that more cuts are on the way, school districts are trying to prepare for the worst, she adds.

“They could come in the next month or two, or in the next school year, because our state’s economy is not improving,” Meredith says.
But as parents echoed at a February 22 school board meeting, Meredith states that cuts to education can cause harm to the citizens who need it the most—children. Class sizes are already on the rise, she notes, which runs counter with pressures placed on teachers, students, and parents for kids to perform well on standardized tests.

Emails to Tippecanoe School Board members Dann Parker and Janet Fox Elmore were not returned, nor were calls to school superintendent Scott Hanback.

“Schools are the one safe place kids have when the economy changes,” says Meredith. “But [Daniels] sees education as one of the extras, and in many cases is cutting from it first.”