Teacher puts a face on job cuts

It was High Noon, and Jim Jarosz had shown up to defend his honor.

But there were no bullets flying, no taunting words. No opponent, for that matter.

Just the lunch crowd walking past Jarosz, 56, as he sat in a chair Monday in front of the Seattle Public Schools' headquarters. Beside him, a bookcase full of young-adult books, and a poster board covered with photos of his students.

Jarosz (pronounced "ya-rosh") was conducting a solo, silent protest of his being laid off from his job as a reading teacher at Hamilton International Middle School in Wallingford. His job ends when this school year ends.

Last month, the school district implemented a reduction in force to try to cover a $34 million budget shortfall in the 2009-2010 school year. The staffing cuts were based on seniority within teaching or job categories.

Teachers who had less than 4.2 years were cut; Jarosz had 3.9.

"Three more months would have saved me," he said. "I just wish they could have waited a little longer, to see if maybe they could find the money."

Jarosz taught five periods of reading a day "to the struggling, most fragile readers," he said.

One class is made up of kids for whom English is a second language; another of special-education students. The other three classes are "regular kids who still have their troubles," Jarosz said. "Family issues, poverty, some abuse, foster care."

With his help, though, they are all readers.

Some have jumped two grade levels in just a year's time.

He showed me the poster-board covered with photos of smiling students, and the Certificates of Reading Excellence they had earned with Jarosz's help. Jarosz has collected data on all of their progress. One student's reading went up four grade levels in one school year, during which he read 118 books.

As we talked, a woman walking with headphones strolled past, then stopped, turned around and read Jarosz's sign about his layoff and protest.

"We can get a tunnel, but we can't fund schools?" she said. "That's really bad."

Jarosz used to be a commercial painter who specialized in the "high work" of painting bridges and skyscrapers.

Despite the seeming adventure of it, "there was nothing to engage my brain," he said.

He got his teaching degree from Heritage University in Toppenish in 2004, and his master's there the following year.

Every summer, he takes continuing-education classes at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York.

Not only that, Jarosz has raised $68,000 through private donors to send other Hamilton teachers to Columbia, and to pay for substitutes to cover for teachers during staff-development days.

In return, his friends at Hamilton were raising money to cover the salary he sacrificed for his protest.

"I haven't heard a reason yet why Jim's (layoff) isn't arbitrary," said Jarosz's fiancee, Mary AnnVan Tassell, 44, who used her lunch break from her teaching job at a Seattle Catholic school to bring him a sandwich.

"There's not a single area where Jim hasn't stepped up to the plate."

But Seattle School District spokesman David Tucker said the district followed specific seniority guidelines in the layoffs. Officials are now waiting on retirements and resignations, and the placement of retained teachers in those jobs, before calling anyone back.

"We are hoping that we are able to recall as many teachers as possible," Tucker said.

Obviously, Jarosz hopes he is one of them.

"When you find a career you really love, and you see something working, you want to choose whether to leave it or not.

"We find the money for things that are important all the time," he said. "I don't think we've ever said no to a road."

So why do we say no to a road that could take kids so much further in life?

That's one question even the teacher couldn't answer.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

She has a soft spot for the chalk-and-eraser crowd.