A chance to listen to Catherine Lhamon, one of the attorneys who won case about massive teacher layoffs at low-income schools (also Camille Zombro)

I attended this event, but we didn't find out why SDEA has added a vice-president. (See comment below.)

Talking Teacher Layoffs
by Emily Alpert
Voice of San Diego
Aug 22, 2011

When teachers get laid off, disadvantaged schools often get hit hardest because they tend to have the newest teachers, and the newest teachers usually get laid off first.

Civil rights groups launched a suit to try to curb that phenomenon in Los Angeles, arguing that if teachers were laid off strictly by seniority, the neediest kids would lose the most.

Los Angeles worked out a controversial settlement that spared some schools from layoffs but worsened them elsewhere. But what will happen here? Though teacher layoffs have been lessened, hundreds of San Diego teachers are still getting the ax, resulting in big disruptions at schools.

Come listen to Camille Zombro, vice president of the local teachers union; Catherine Lhamon, one of the attorneys who lodged the Los Angeles case; and your humble education reporter (me) talk about teacher layoffs, their many impacts, and the debate over whether schools could find a better way at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law this Wednesday night.

There will be a reception from 5:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. and the panel will run from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The event is sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties and the San Diego Lawyer chapter of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy...

COMMENT

Emily, maybe you can tell us readers about the position of Vice President at San Diego Education Association. Is this a new position paid for by union dues? Is it a full-time job? Is the person annually elected to the position as the President is? When was this position established?

I had always understood that after an SDEA President completes two terms in office, he or she returns the the rank-and-file and the classroom. But here is Camille Zombro, SDEA Vice President after already having been President for two years, filling in for SDEA President Bill Freeman at your roundtable. What's with that?