Schools May Rehire 140 Teachers

ff 7 The Ann Arbor Board of Education will be asked tonight to rehire 140 teachers whose jobs have been in jeopardy since early April, The teachers constitute slightly more than half of the 256 who were mailed termination o f employment notices because of the school district's financial uncertainties. The 140 teachers are being rehired because some of those uncertainties have been eliminated, according to a school spokesman. The fate of the remaining 116 teachers hinges primarily on the voters' acceptance or rejection of a 2.61-mill tax increase which will appear on the June 14 school election ballot, the spokesman said. "Conceivably, others will be rehired," said John Hubley, assistant superintendent for community services. The school board will be asked to approve the rehiring of the 140 teachers when it meets at 7:30 p.m. today at the Administration Building, 1220 Wells. Hubley said the 140 teachers are being rehired because school administrators now have a better idea of the elective courses students will take next year and because of an opportunity to develop an alternative budget for the school district - one that does not include the 2.61-mill tax increase. The information on electives has made it possible for school officials to anticipate the kinds of teachers they will need next year. The administration's recommendation to rehire the 140 probationary teachers may not attract the support of Trustee Ted Heusel, however. Heusel said at a "Candidates Night" meeting at Huron High School last evening that a miscalculation in the number of students who would be attending Ann Arbor Public Schools last f all resulted in the overhiring of 50 teachers, at a cost to taxpayers of about $500,000. The trustee said if these extra teachers could have been released at the end of the first semester in January, some of this money could have been saved. Westerman this morning told The News that an overestimate of 819 students was indeed made in the school budget before the year began and, "We could have gotten along with, fewer teachers." Although agreeing with Heusel's statement, Westerman added that by staffing teachers for a number of students greater than those who actually appeared, ... we did enjoy a year when class size was controlled and similar to 1969." Westerman also commented that once the miscalculation was discovered, "disorganization and disruption" would have resulted from attempting to compénsate for the error by reorganizing classes. Because the teachers were under contract, they "probably could not have been released" at the end of the first semester, the superintendent concluded. All of the teachers on the list of those to be rehired are probationary teachers. Of the total, 36 are black elementary school staff members, 14 are male elemenary teachers, 19 are elementary teachers with master's degrees and experience in Ann Arbor, 10 are elementary teachers with study credit beyond the bachelor's degree and experience in Ann Arbor, and 11 are elementary teachers with bachelor's dgerees and experience in the local system. An additional 20 are black teachers at the secondary (junior and senior high) level, 29 are secondary teachers with master's degrees and experience in Ann Arbor, and one is a secondary teacher with study credit beyond the bachelor's degree and experience in Ann Arbor. When the termination notices were mailed out in April, school officials were criticized because many of the probationary teachers involved were blacks. The terminations also drew heavy criticism from the Ann Arbor Education Association, the teachers' union, which said it would attempt to "force" the school board to rescind its decisión to dismiss the teachers. Officials of the AAEA could not be reached this morning for comment. The termination notices were mailed in April since the State Tenure Act requires that non-tenure teachers be notified within 60 days of the end of the school year that their contracts will not be renewed. (School board agenda story on Page 15.)