U-46 rehires attacked Elgin High teacher, others

After eight weeks of panic, some Elgin Area School District U-46 teachers are breathing sighs of relief this week.

Other colleagues are left waiting, or preparing to move onto other jobs.

Among the first 200 teachers tapped to be recalled are Elgin High School fashion teacher Carolyn Gilbert, Streamwood choir director David Hain and Bartlett High School social studies and English teacher Robert Kling.

"Now I can get down to the business of planning next year," said Hain, a Streamwood resident.

Gilbert, finishing her fourth year at the district, said she got the news at 3:10 p.m. Wednesday.

"I'm rehired!!!" she wrote in a Wednesday evening e-mail.

The Bloomingdale resident, a single mother of two, endured a difficult physical and emotional recovery after being stabbed in the head, neck and eye by a 16-year-old student in January 2008.

Gilbert, who lost her right eye in the attack, never sued or blamed the district. Her aim was simply to return to teach.

After learning she was one of the 732 teachers pink-slipped as part of $29 million in budget cuts, Gilbert said she felt betrayed by the district to which she showed such loyalty. The stress of being out of a job, Gilbert said, caused problems with both her prosthetic eye and her good eye. She worried how she was going to pay for college tuition for daughters Elizabeth and Caitlin.

Hain learned he'd been recalled on Monday.

A choir director at Streamwood for the past five years described recent weeks as "very stressful."

His students, he said, knew that recall would be coming and "they were sending me text messages and phone calls. They were really supportive."

His job duties will shift next year, as he will take on teaching choir at Larsen Middle School in Elgin in addition to Streamwood High and Tefft Middle School.

Kling has taught on and off in the district since 1970, first at Larkin High School and then as the district's gifted program director, before moving onto teach at Northwestern University in 1983. Kling returned to the district in 2005, as an English and social studies teacher at Bartlett High.

For tenure purposes, he is considered to have five years under his belt.

"I can promise you, I'm the only 65-year-old to see a (pink slip)," he said.

Chief Financial Officer Ron Ally has said U-46 intentionally laid off more teachers than necessary to pad itself against funding uncertainties.

"What we know is that we have positions we're going to have to fill. In order to make space for certification issues, you have to (over cut)," district spokesman Tony Sanders said. The positions available now are available regardless of funding. "We have them because we know the students are coming," he said.

With teacher layoffs, the district conducted what it calls a "targeted reduction in force" - determining how many positions it will need in certain departments, and then cutting in those departments by seniority.

Positions are being filled in a similar fashion. The district hopes to recall another 100 teachers the week of June 1. Not all 300 are guaranteed to have a job next year, because they may not be properly certified to fill the various vacant positions.

"We look at their teaching certificate," Torres told the Daily Herald March 12. "If (a teacher with seniority) is certified to teach social studies even though they've been teaching English, they may bump a less experienced social studies teacher. Certified nurses, too, might have an education certificate along with a nursing certificate. They could bump an elementary teacher."

Cindy Maloney, a certified nurse at Bartlett High School with 11 years experience in the district, says she knows she won't be called back because the district is reducing the number of nursing positions next year.

"I wasn't expecting it," she said. "The way they restructured the (nursing staff)."

Maloney, who found a job at Glenbard North High School, says she's "survived. I'll miss all of the kids here, though."

Kling said it's been tough to watch his colleagues, many the same age as his own grown children, wait out the recall process.

"I don't like the way Ron Ally did it. I'm beginning to wonder whether I shouldn't have given him an 'A' in English in 1971," he cracked.

"I've taken issue from the beginning with this attitude we're going to RIF more than we need to because you can always hire them back. You're playing with peoples lives and emotions."