10:15 PM PDT on Tuesday, July 27, 2010

By DAYNA STRAEHLEY
The Press-Enterprise

The Inland area’s laid-off teachers are cutting their household budgets and learning to tell their children no.

They have turned off their air conditioners and no longer can buy the things they used to take for granted.

They are looking for jobs, even though Inland districts have cut hundreds of positions.

Public education in California has received $17 billion less in state funding than anticipated over the last two budget years. As a result, more than 20,000 teachers have received pink slips this year statewide, the California Department of Education said. Districts still are trying to figure out how many teachers they can bring back to work.

Janelle Kell, who was laid off a year ago as a counselor at Landmark Middle School in Moreno Valley, worries about the extension of her unemployment benefits and possibly having to take a job that pays less than unemployment.

Kell said she checks the EdJoin website, where California school districts post vacancies, every day, often every few hours, “but there are so few education jobs.” One district posted a job and got so many applicants that the position was up for less than a day rather than the usual week, she said.

She applied for a job in another district and was one of 300 applicants. All had the same credentials and master’s degrees.

“Fortunately, I have a husband who works,” she said.

Michael Kell is assistant pastor at Liberty Baptist Church, which has a staff of two and doesn’t offer health insurance. Government assistance has covered much of the cost of COBRA health coverage for the couple and their 3-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter.

“We have not gone without insurance,” Janelle Kell said. “It’s just not possible in our minds.”

After October, their premiums will go up about $1,000 a month, reaching about $1,500 once the government subsidy ends.

“Now we’re researching other options,” she said.

Her unemployment check is $1,900 a month, or a little less than $23,000 a year. The Moreno Valley Unified School District pays teachers with master’s degrees $49,396 to $89,480 annually, depending on experience and postgraduate credits, a salary schedule on the district’s website shows.

Kell said she has heard of former co-workers who have worked sporadically as substitute teachers for $100 a day. She said she hasn’t pursued part-time work because of the difficulties of keeping stable child care, for which she used to pay $1,000 a month.

Tenured substitute

“I’ve started the unemployment process,” said Raphaela Nelson, who used to coach other teachers on instructional techniques at Magnolia Elementary School in Riverside.

Nelson said she wishes she had a credential to teach high school math because the Riverside Unified School District needs math teachers. She’s looking at jobs in other fields, too.

If she doesn’t find a job before the end of summer, she will make herself available for substitute work.

District officials said most or all laid-off teachers will be able to work as substitutes for the same pay rate they earned before they were laid off, if they work at least 20 days out of 60.

Nelson can get insurance benefits as a substitute, but at a higher cost than when she was a full-time teacher, she said. On unemployment, health insurance will take most of her check.

Her self-employed husband runs a landscaping business.

“With people losing their jobs, he’s losing business, too. Once my paycheck is gone, we won’t be able to pay our mortgage,” Nelson said. “I don’t want to be on unemployment. That’s not who I am.”

She took her job in Riverside three years ago after having taught several years in San Bernardino, she said.

“It was always my dream to teach at the same school as my kids go to, and I got one year,” she said.

Her son is in sixth grade and her daughter will be in kindergarten, both at Magnolia.

Nelson said she thought about moving to a state that is hiring teachers, but she doesn’t want to uproot her family, which has roots in Riverside.

“I don’t want to take that bond away from them,” she said.

Trying to find another job has been stressful.

“I wish it was making me lose weight, but it’s not,” Nelson said. “It’s to the point where I cry for little reason. Who knew we’d save prisoners, banks and car dealers over teachers.”

Income cut in half

Kristy Orona Ramirez, who taught English and social studies at Wells Middle School in the Alvord Unified School District, said she is glad her youngest will start school in August at Victoria Elementary in Riverside and won’t need child care.

She plans to teach a class this fall at Whittier College that may pay less than unemployment.

Her layoff cut her family income in half. Her husband, Arturo Orona Ramirez, is a math teacher who kept his job at Wells, in west Riverside.

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