The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is suing the Child Protective Services (CPS) Division of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services in Austin. The lawsuit filed in June of this year charges that CPS violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by failing to pay overtime compensation. The DOL suit seeks more than $1 million in back wages and damages for 800 employees.
An investigation conducted by the Wage and Hour Division’s San Antonio office found that employees were not being paid for all hours worked and records were not properly maintained. Allegedly, employees were told not to record all of the hours they worked. The three-year investigation culminated with the Wage and Hour Division declaring that CPS had willfully violated the FLSA. A similar lawsuit was brought against another Texas state agency in 2000 which ended up costing the state $2 million.
—“DOL Sues Texas State Agency for Failing to Pay Overtime,” SHRM online, June 10, 2011.
Austin ISD reduced local sick leave by two days for its 12,000 employees in an effort to save money. The move was prompted by the district’s budget shortfall and is expected to save approximately $750,000.
Starting this year, 12-month employees will now receive 6 days of local sick leave (down from 8). Ten- and 11-month employees were reduced to four and five sick days, respectively. These leave days are at an employee’s full pay. Austin ISD also eliminated its hardship leave policy.
In addition to the required five days of state personal leave, the district still offers a sick leave bank and civic leave, all at full pay. Other leave programs with partial or no pay include extended leave for personal illness, parenting/adoptive leave (up to one year), temporary disability, and professional leave.
Twenty-five thousand jobs were slashed from state and local government payrolls in June, according to data released by the Labor Department. Local governments cut 18,000 jobs and state governments cut an additional 7,000, bringing both state and local government employment down to its lowest level since mid-2006.
Job cuts at the local level have been heavily concentrated in education. Local governments eliminated 12,600 education positions in June, and have eliminated more than 124,000 education positions since August 2010.
The National League of Cities issued a statement on the Labor Department report, predicting public job cuts will continue for the next 18 months. The league indicated that these continuing cuts are likely to impede private-sector job development.
—“State and Local Governments Bleeding Jobs,” by Lisa Lambert, Reuters.com, July 8, 2011.
School counselors have worked hard to define their role as separate from testing coordinators. They have tried repeatedly to enact legislation that would change what is now a voluntary standard into a mandate—that no more than 10 percent of counselors’ time can be spent on duties outside the scope of duties outlined in the TEA Model Developmental Guidance and Counseling Program for Texas Public Schools 
. Test administration is not included among those duties; in fact there are districts that have gone so far as to prohibit counselors from having any responsibility in the administration of standardized tests.
The new standardized testing system known as STAAR, State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, could change all that. Many of the personnel cuts made to reduce school budgets this summer were nonclassroom positions like coordinators and specialists and are not likely to be replaced anytime soon. The burden of those position cuts combined with the complexity of new graduation requirements is likely to fall hard on counselors. High school students will have to perform better on harder tests and take more of them to graduate, achieving a cumulative score across several end-of-course exams. New ninth graders will begin taking the first end-of-course exams next spring.
In July, delegates at the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly called on members to “publicly oppose” contracts with Teach for America (TFA) when they are used by districts without teacher shortages or are part of an effort to save money on salaries. NEA alleges that some TFA contracts could be used to “bust unions.”
NEA, the nation’s largest teacher union, hadn’t taken any formal position on TFA until this year. Tension increased when the Kansas City, MO, school district laid off teachers at around the same time that it hired some TFA recruits.
TFA contends that its teachers “do not displace other teachers but rather compete for vacant positions.” Also, because districts pay a fee for each TFA teacher they hire, personnel costs aren’t necessarily lower. TFA’s goal is to recruit outstanding college students, provide them with quick but intense training for the classroom, and ask them to teach for at least two years. For the fourth consecutive year, TFA received a record high level of interest from schools and districts wanting to hire its teachers (as well as a record number of applicants).
TFA leaders vowed to “strive harder to build positive relationships and partner with our valued colleagues in the teaching profession” in a newsletter to alumni. TFA and NEA have fundamentally different stances on the role of teacher preparation and the nature of a career in teaching.
—“NEA Delegates Take Swipe at Teach for America,” by Stephen Sawchuk, Education Week online, July 5, 2011.
— “Teach for America Elaborates Its Response to NEA Criticism,” by Stephen Sawchuk, Education Week online’s Teacher Beat blog, July 22, 2011.
A misstep in hiring foreign teachers proved to be very costly for a school district in Maryland. In a recent agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor, Prince George’s County will have to pay $4.2 million in back wages to approximately 1,000 teachers who had been made to pay various fees to obtain a temporary work visa. Federal law requires the employer to pay these fees.
On the heels of the No Child Left Behind law, the school district heavily recruited abroad to mostly fill critical shortage areas, eventually employing some 10 percent of its 9,000 teacher workforce with educators from overseas. In addition to the fines and penalties levied, the district is banned from applying for new visas or extending current visas until 2014. According to a district spokesman, the ban immediately impacts several hundred teachers who are due for visa renewal through January, with many more soon to follow.
A 2009 report, Importing Educators: Causes and Consequences of International Teacher Recruitment , produced by the American Federation of Teachers, estimated that 19,000 teachers were working in the U.S. on temporary visas in 2007.
—“Pr. George’s schools to end foreign teacher recruitment,” by Michael Alison Chandler, Washington Post, July 7, 2011.
