When Bradwell Elementary School begins classes on Sept. 7 one veteran teacher will be absent from class.
When Bradwell Elementary School begins classes on Sept. 7 one veteran teacher will be absent from class. Jacqueline Sanders had taught at Bradwell, 7736 S. Burnham Ave. over two decades. CPS, which slashed 1,000 teacher jobs this year due to low enrollment, laid her off in June as part of a cost cutting measure and budget cuts. She had been at the South Side elementary school for 21 of the 26 years she’d been a CPS teacher. For Sanders, teaching is not just a job. It is her life. “For the first time in 26 years I have no students to buy school supplies for. My car trunk is empty and so is my life now that I no longer have kids to teach,” Sanders told the Defender. Bradwell is a turnaround school, which meant teachers, staff and the principal had to reapply for their jobs at the school. She attended a recent job fair held at McCormick Place for displaced CPS teachers but left with no job offers from schools. “They smiled in my face, praised me for my accomplishments but in the end no one offered me a job,” she said. “No teacher at my age and with my experience should have to interview for a teaching job.” Retirement is also not an option right now for the veteran teacher. The 50-year-old Sanders is a few years shy of the school district’s age requirement to receive retirement benefits. “CPS requires a teacher to be at least 55 years old or have taught for at least 34 years to receive 75 percent of their salary upon retiring,” said Sanders. “I want to be able to maintain my lifestyle so retirement (right now) is not an option.” She had aspired one day to become a principal and even earned masters degrees in Teacher Leadership and Educational Administration from St. Xavier University in southwest suburban Oak Lawn. She also earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Alcorn State University in Mississippi. “It seems like every thing I have done was done for nothing. All that hard work I put into my career has gone down the drain,” she lamented. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said teaching was once a recession-proof career but that time has passed. “When teachers are asked to give up pay raises that’s when you know times have changed for the worse,” Lewis said. “Removing teachers from the lives of children is more than just a cost cutting measure but a life changing one.” Most of the teachers displaced were tenured. According to Lewis, 83 percent of the 426 teachers fired from year-round schools were had been on the job for four years or more.. “CPS chose to unlawfully fire tenured teachers to weaken schools, plain and simple,” Lewis said in a written statement released by CTU Friday. According to CTU, all CPS teachers are on probation during their first three years of teaching and can be fired at any time without cause. But in their fourth year, teachers become tenured and are given the right to defend themselves against disciplinary actions, which could lead to losing their jobs. “It’s not a guarantee, but at least tenure offers teachers some protections from arbitrary and retaliatory dismissals,” Lewis explained. Teachers are scheduled to receive a 4 percent pay raise this year as part of their contract with CPS. Ron Huberman, chief executive officer for CPS, has asked teachers to not take their raises to help the district balance its budget and prevent increasing high school class sizes to 33 from 31. “I am asking for shared sacrifices from everyone. If teachers were to forgo their raise we would not have to increase class sizes,” Huberman told the Defender. But thanks to the $26.1 billion Education and Medicaid Bill President Barack Obama signed into law last month CPS is expected to receive an additional $106 million this year, which Huberman said would be used to help bring back “as many teachers as possible.” Tina Walker, 39, has been pursuing teaching positions in the suburbs and out of state since being laid off this year. “I have applied for teaching jobs in Washington, D.C., California and Atlanta. Teaching jobs in Illinois are not stable so I am looking outside the state,” she said. “When I opened up the (layoff) notice I felt like my livelihood had been taken away.” Knowing that bill collectors would not stop calling because she is unemployed, Walker said she is prepared to work for anyone who will hire her. “If I have to take a job that is not education related it will be a big transition for me. My mother is a retired CPS teacher and she encouraged me to pursue education as a career,” added Walker, who cautions college students nowadays about entering the field. Finding a non-teaching job is difficult especially if you have a lot of education, explained Walker, a 10-year veteran teacher. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Alabama State University, a master’s degree in Elementary Education from Cambridge College in Massachusetts and Education Leadership from Lewis University in suburban Romeoville. “I applied for a job at a retail store because I heard it paid weekly and was not hired. The manager said I was over qualified and feared I would leave once I found another teaching position,” she said. Antoniette Walden, 49, has been a teacher for 17 years, most recently teaching third grade at Bradwell. In June she was notified that she was not being retained. For now she plans to substitute teach for CPS. “The scariest part about losing my job is not knowing where I will end up. I wanted to someday be a principal and now I may never get the chance,” said Walden, a former day care owner who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Elementary Education. “Once you’ve taught for so long you do not want to do anything else but be an educator,” Walden said. Copyright 2010 Chicago Defender
(Defender/Wendell Hutson)
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