Brookline School District Layoffs Prompt Demonstrations

BROOKLINE, MA — Brookline school officials sent layoff notices last week to more than 350 teachers and staff in an attempt to address a $6.3 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Some 27 teachers at Heath School got notices. Although the district has said it is working to find ways to hire those staff back before the next school year, it shocked the school community.

Monday Brookline High School students protested the loss of their teachers and Tuesday Heath educators lined up chairs along the sidewalk in front of the school with the names of the teachers who had received pink slips, in a silent demonstration.

"It's a powerful representation of what's happening," said Heath School Principal Dr. Asa Sevelius, "A physical manifestation. It really helps you see it."

Staff organized the day to coincide with the day students and their families were scheduled to come pick up school materials and drop off library books. Sevelius said younger students were looking at the chairs with the teachers' names and asking why they were getting let go.

"It's overwhelming," he said. "We are having to help kids make sense of this perceived loss. It's helping explain the budget loss."

Tatiana Beckwith, a fourth grade teacher who has been teaching in town for two decades said the layoffs seemed extreme.

"It just seemed like a very drastic move on their part to have a $6.3 million deficit and counter it with $20 million worth of cuts," said Beckwith. "And their assertion that it's about having flexibility is not reassuring."

Officials said Friday they needed to make layoff announcement now, even as they are working on ways to hire staff back in the fall, because of their contract with the teachers' union. They plan to elaborate at the June 4 School Committee meeting.

Emily MacNeil who has taught fifth grade for the past three years is one of the teachers who got notice that she won't be returning to school in September.

"It feels real," she told Patch.

Jennifer Harty, a third grade teacher who has taught at Heath for the past 15 years, was there in solidarity.

"People still need to pay their bills and to not know what will happen in September causes undue anxiety," she said.

The teachers told Patch that to lay off 27 people, is about a fourth of the school's staff.

"We can't do school without that many people - in person or online," said Beckwith.

She added that four of the five special education teachers were laid off, which means by law, the school won't be able to serve special education students with special plans this way.

"That's pretty significant," she said.

The educators handed out fliers with the names of the teachers who had been given the pink slips and asked that families contact the select board, school board and advisory committee to demand their teachers be reinstated.

Read more: Brookline Furloughs Nearly 200 Employees Amid Coronavirus

• Brookline School Budget: Cuts Anticipated

Brookline Lays Off Teachers, Staff As Town Revenue

• Brookline School District Message Regarding Layoff Notices

Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).Have a press release you'd like posted on the Patch? Here's how to post a press release, opinion piece.