Fired Workers Reapply for Teaching Jobs in Rhode Island

Posted on May 12, 2010

The 93 teachers, staff, and administrators fired from Central Falls School District are reapplying for their lost teaching jobs in Rhode Island, according to Examiner.com.

In February 2010, the Central Falls Superintendent of Schools, Frances Gallo, came forward with a solution when the teacher’s union rejected her conditions on reforming the city’s failing high school: fire all 93 teachers, staff and administrators.

In one fell swoop, dozens of teaching jobs in Rhode Island were eliminated.

Pink slips were mailed out as promised and now Central Falls teachers who have applied for the very jobs they were fired from are finding out that they have some serious competition.

According to the WPRI.com, the Central Falls school district has received approximately 800 applications from potential teachers.

Central Falls Highs school is considered one of the worst performing in the state of Rhode Island with a 48 percent graduation rate. 

So far, three teachers have been re-hired, reportedly to head the school’s learning academies. That leaves an additional  87 who have applied to get their jobs back.

Not all of the teachers will be re-hired because the school will not receive federal improvement grants if they hire back more than half of the old teachers.

While about 87 teachers, guidance counselors and other staff have applied to keep the jobs they lost en mass three months ago, Schools Superintendent Frances Gallo said Tuesday more than 700 people have applied for their jobs so far, The Providence Journal reported.

Under federal rules, about half of the teachers can be rehired as efforts are made to improve the low-performing school where only 47 percent of last year’s senior class graduated and only 7 percent of students were proficient in math, the newspaper said.

The teachers’ union is fighting the firings on two fronts — in federal court and through state Education Department mediation.

Gallo says she anticipates naming a new principal next week and that person will play a key role in screening and selecting teachers who will be on the school’s faculty in the fall.