Glendale Heights students rally against staff cuts
When sixth-grader Ryan Patterson was given a note to take home to his parents, he read it - and knew exactly what it meant when it mentioned budget cuts at Queen Bee Elementary District 16.
More than a third of District 16's teachers, including some of Ryan's teachers at Glenside Middle School in Glendale Heights, might not return next school year.
So Ryan and his friends decided to do something about it. They organized a protest.
"We don't want our teachers to get fired," the 11-year-old said. "We think it's unfair. They need the money to support their kids."
On Friday afternoon, more than 100 children joined Ryan at Camera Park in Glendale Heights to show their support for the 52 teachers who are losing their jobs at the end of the year.
Carrying homemade signs and wearing T-shirts with slogans written in permanent marker, the students lined up along Fullerton Avenue and chanted, "Save our teachers, save our schools."
Meanwhile, parents were gathering signatures for a petition that will be sent to Springfield lawmakers.
District 16, which serves about 2,100 students in Glendale Heights and small parts of Glen Ellyn and Carol Stream, cut its $18 million budget by about $775,000 last year.
Now the state owes Queen Bee between $350,000 to $750,000 in delayed payments, officials said. And depending on what happens with the state funding situation, the district will need to make up a budget deficit of between $600,000 and $2.1 million.
A final decision on a list of proposed budget cuts hasn't been made. Still, District 16 had a deadline to inform 32 nontenured and 20 tenured teachers that they were being let go because of a 90-day notice requirement.
Superintendent Victoria Tabbert said the possibility of losing 52 of Queen Bee's 147 certified teachers is "an enormous hit to the district." She said the hope is to bring back as many of the teachers in the fall as possible.
"We will save every job that we could save," Tabbert said. "But we have to know what kind of money we have. We can't just guess. And we can't just hope. There is no indication from the state that any dollars are actually definite."
Like many of adults, 11-year-old Priscila Reynaga doesn't understand the state's budget mess. She does knows that she likes all of her teachers.
"The teachers enjoy staying here," she said. "They want us to have a good education."
Tara Patterson, Ryan's mom, said she's pleased the students got the opportunity to be heard.
"They want the school board, the state and the teachers to know that they back the teachers," she said. "They also want people to know that they have a voice, too. This is their future that's being messed with."
Students, parents and administrators alike say they most fear a "worst case scenario" in which none of the laid-off teachers come back, and art, music and band would be eliminated districtwide.
"That would be devastating to the system from an instructional perspective, from what's right and best for kids," Tabbert said. "It's difficult for me to even talk about. My priority is to try to save the fine arts."