How Common Is Schools’ Shifty Behavior?

While I was out, the Union-Tribune ran an interesting story about teachers being moved from one school to another weeks into the school year, when school enrollment turns out to be lower than expected.

Parents get riled up about shifting teachers because kids have to be moved around, too. Former school board candidate Steve Rosen told the U-T that losing a teacher at his kids’ school was a tipping point to get him involved. But how common is this shifty behavior in the school district, anyway?

Not very common, it turns out. When I asked earlier this month, just 16 teachers were being reassigned from one school to another after school began, according to the San Diego Unified human resources department. That’s a small fraction of more than 6,000 teachers in the school district.

So shifting teachers is still rare. But is it getting worse?

School district officials said they had no way to compare whether they were more or less frequent than in the past, since reassignments aren’t closely tracked. Still, the article hinted that budget problems have made it harder to keep teachers if enrollment drops:

Until the district’s budget can accommodate the hiring of more teachers — which will likely not be soon since the district faces potential teacher layoffs next spring — shifting instructors from campus to campus is set to continue.

Please contact Emily Alpert directly at emily.alpert@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5665 and follow her on Twitter: twitter.com/emilyschoolsyou.