Teachers’ union, administrator at odds on handling teaching shortage, ‘excessing’

The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA) has filed grievances against the city’s school district, arguing a recent move to address classroom vacancies harmed both staffers and students.

“Administration could have partnered with workers to develop a respectful, efficient plan to fill vacancies, but instead chose an arbitrary and capricious path that left workers feeling demoralized while destabilizing our students’ education,” MTEA President Ingrid Walker-Henry told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) “excessed” 181 teacher positions in May, meaning employees affected could transfer or reassign themselves by reapplying for specific positions still available in the district.

“As of Sept. 8, MPS said 30 employees whose jobs were excessed have taken classroom teaching positions,” the Sentinel reported.

“Six retired and three resigned, according to MPS. It said the total number of excessed jobs was reduced from 181 to 158, after decisions were made to retain certain positions.”

Overall, the district reduced 30 positions and reposted 128 of the 158 jobs for staff reapplications, according to the article.

‘Predictably dysfunctional’

The union has also threatened to bring legal action against MPS, lambasting the excessing process as “poorly designed, badly executed, deeply unfair, and predictably dysfunctional.”

Incoming Superintendent Brenda Cassellius defended the decision, arguing a national teacher shortage, poor academic performance and a government-ordered audit required major district changes.

“We have 10,000 employees in the district,” she told journalists. “What I am trying to do is shift a large district around (its) academic agenda, and one that always places students first in every decision.”

Part of the issue involved teacher licenses. Classroom vacancies cause children to be taught by teachers on permits, paraprofessionals or substitutes – instead of educators with permanent licenses, according to the Sentinel.

“Having a licensed teacher is the most basic part of the work that we do,” Cassellius said.

However, classroom educators such as Anna Luberda disagreed with Cassellius’ description of the excessing.

“The perception is that she (Cassellius) was cutting positions that were useless, that were kind of taking up space in a bloated office,” Luberda said. “When, in reality, the teachers that she cut were teachers. They were not sitting around in an office all day.”

Luberda, a longtime classroom teacher who became an MPS literacy coach in April, learned her job had been excessed in May.

“I wasn’t even part of the email chain,” she said. “I had to reach out to HR and they did tell me that, yep, I’m excessed. So that was tough.”