LAUSD Superintendent Asks Why $57 Million Goes Unused

Principals and other Los Angeles school administrators have been given a Monday deadline to explain why they haven't used $57 million in local discretionary funds to stave off the pending layoff of 1,900 teachers, nurses and counselors, it was reported today.

Superintendent John Deasy gave the Los Angeles Unified School District bureaucracy until Monday to justify sitting on the money, which was allocated to individual campuses in a move to decentralize spending priorities, the Daily Breeze newspaper reported.

"I believe in autonomy, but I also believe that if you have the means to provide to students -- and we've been hearing lots of concerns about students not getting what they need -- you have a responsibility to do that,'' Deasy told the newspaper.

The president of the association that represents principals said many of its members have been overwhelmed with end-of-the-year responsibilities. Other principals, said Judy Perez, do not have enough local discretionary funds to pay for an entire teacher's salary and benefits, estimated at around $80,000 each.

One principal told the Daily Breeze that he did not want to use his school's local funding to rehire teachers because he would be forced to take teachers based on the district-wide seniority list. Six underperforming LAUSD schools have had their staffs dissolved this year, adding senior teachers from them to the pool of laid-off teachers.

John McLaughlin, principal of Roy Romer Middle School in North Hollywood, said he had carefully selected the teachers at his school, and did not want to hire teachers who had been laid off.

"I am losing my hand-picked people and now they want me to drink from a pool of stagnant water,'' McLaughlin told the Daily Breeze. "If someone is terrible in one place, they are going to be terrible here ...Why would I want to do that to my kids?'' he asked.

Teachers union president A.J. Duffy bristled at that, and told the newspaper it was wrong for principals to assume that laid-off teachers were in that position because of poor performance.

Deasy, who took office this spring, has the power to step in and force principals to rehire teachers, nurses and counselors. He told the newspaper that the matter should be settled quickly, to avoid the cost of laying educators off, paying them unemployment insurance benefits, and then rehiring them this fall.