In Lynnwood, students wearing yellow T-shirts with “Save music. Save Jeff. Save Edmonds” written in puffy paint filed into an Edmonds School District budget meeting to try to prevent choir teacher Jeff Horenstein from losing his job.
At Lake Stevens High School, students started petitions to protest the layoff of American Sign Language teacher Robin Appesland.
In Marysville, Tenth Street School band members urged the school board, “Don’t sack Sackman,” in a bid to help music teacher Nathan Sackman keep his job.
With schools in Snohomish County laying off scores of employees, kids are taking a stand to try to save the teachers they love. In a role reversal, students are advocating on behalf of the teachers who guide them in school. School officials say this is the first time they’ve seen students rally en masse for individual teachers.
“I don’t think that students are used to the magnitude of cuts we’re seeing right now,” said Andi Nofziger, president of the Edmonds teachers union. “And I think it hits them very personally when teachers they respect and care for are handed a (layoff) notice and told they don’t have a job next year. Kids don’t understand why that’s happening.”
Students have packed into school board meetings in recent weeks with handmade signs, T-shirts and face paint, advocating on behalf of their favorite teachers. Some have issued tearful pleas to school boards while the teachers they are trying to help sit a few feet away in the audience.
“Jeff is probably the best director we’ve ever had at Meadowdale High School,” sophomore Marilee Clobes said Thursday, after a budget meeting she attended to protest Horenstein’s layoff. “He’s more of a friend than a teacher. It’s really heartwrenching because we want him to stay so bad.”
Parents in the Edmonds School District have asked permission to raise money to pay the salaries of specific teachers who recently received pink slips, district spokeswoman DJ Jakala said.
While it’s inspiring to see students and parents try to save teachers, it’s usually not possible, she said. Union contracts give preference to teachers with the most years of experience, so new teachers — regardless of their talent — are usually the first to be laid off.
“There’s a sweet sorrow in the fact that kids have developed such incredible relationships with their teachers that they’re spending their afternoons at budget meetings,” Jakala said. “It’s just sad that we’re in a position of having to make these changes.”
State law required schools to tell teachers by last Friday if they would have a job next year. More than 240 Snohomish County teachers received layoff notices. Some may be rehired if budget situations change, and students hope administrators take their pleas into consideration if more money appears.
However, administrators are bound by contracts and can’t weigh student opinion when deciding whom to lay off or rehire, said Gail Miller, assistant superintendent of the Marysville School District.
Marysville administrators decided not to lay off Sackman, but it wasn’t because students rallied behind him, she said.
Even if students are not successful, it can be touching to see them fight on your behalf, Horenstein said.
He told his choir classes last week that he was losing the job he had held for three years. An elementary school band teacher with more seniority likely will take his place, he said. The Edmonds School District has proposed cutting elementary school band to save $465,000.
“They were going to figure out whether I told them or not, so I figured it was better if they heard it from me,” he said. “There was frustration, anger, sadness. It ran the gamut.”
Horenstein’s students wanted to help, so he encouraged them to attend school board meetings. He said helping in the protest would never affect a student’s grade.
Still, it’s a fine line, Nofziger said.
“I’m sure it’s very heartening, but it’s also awkward,” the union leader said. “These are teachers who are role models and who evaluate students and assess them.”
When Appesland’s students learned she’d be losing her job teaching American Sign Language, they wanted to storm the principal’s office and complain, she said. She encouraged them instead to write letters or start a petition.
“Sometimes as a teacher you don’t always know that your students appreciate what you do every day,” she said. “The majority of students never say a word, so you never know how much you’ve impacted their life. To see them actually put forth a petition and be serious about it, it made my heart glad. It was really cool.”
Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292, kmanry@heraldnet.com.
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