Clinton Township

Clintondale sends layoff notices to 15 teachers

By Heidi Roman
C & G Staff Writer

Some may be called back before the fall

CLINTON TOWNSHIP — A number of teachers in the Clintondale Community Schools district are going to receive letters notifying them that they’ll no longer have jobs at the end of the school year. The 15 probationary teachers will be laid off as of June 30, the school board decided May 11.

“We have been reviewing our enrollment for next year, and we anticipate we will have to lay off a number of teachers,” said Trustee Joan Walmsley. Many of them could be called back before the next school year once enrollment is determined and teaching positions are shifted around in response, she said.

Assistant Superintendent Mitch Ritter believes the drop in enrollment has to do with families leaving the area, or leaving Michigan altogether. The district doesn’t know yet exactly what the enrollment numbers will be, but they expect to see more empty desks in the fall.

As many other districts have, Clintondale has started to market itself in the past couple of years to try to attract new students to offset the number of kids leaving the district.

“We have a high flow of marketing with billboards, TV commercials, (advertising) between the first and second periods of Red Wings games and at movie theaters,” Ritter said. “All of that is really quite new to the (education) business.”

Many districts believe it’s their only shot at warding off the budget problems that come from fewer students. Fewer students mean less money from state-shared revenue.

Since the district doesn’t know what the final student count for the next school year will be, officials don’t yet know how many teachers they’ll need. The layoff notices went out to 15 non-tenured teachers, though they may not actually lose their jobs.

“It is our intent to retract a number of those letters prior to them taking effect,” Ritter said.

Contractual obligations require the district to lay off the least senior teachers, but those teachers aren’t always working in the areas where enrollment is down. Ritter said it’s a complicated process to move teachers around based on their expertise, seniority and the class sizes they expect.

The district is required to give teachers 30 days of notice before a layoff, so it’s better to send out more notices than may be necessary. Otherwise, a teacher could be laid off after spending a month or two with their classroom, which isn’t healthy for education.

Last year, the district gave layoff notices to probationary teachers, but only actually laid off one teacher, Ritter said. The rest of the notices were retracted.

This year, a number of retirements in the district could play out in teachers’ favor, Walmsley said.

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Heidi Roman at hroman@candgnews.com or at (586)218-5006.