© 2024 Boise State Public Radio
NPR in Idaho
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Apple's latest iOS (17.4) is preventing our livestreams from playing. We suggest you download the free Boise State Public Radio app & stream us there while we work to troubleshoot the issue.

Nampa Teachers Asked To Volunteer For Furloughs As District Tries To Fix Budget Deficit

Visitor7
/
Wikimedia Commons

Last week the Nampa School District mandated four furlough days for all classified staff. That’s part of the district's plan to overcome a budget deficit of about $4.5 million. The district says teachers don’t have to take furloughs but, some say that’s not what they’re hearing.

One Nampa teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous, says last week her principal told teachers they should volunteer for four furlough days. She says she was willing but felt the way it was presented was manipulative.

Teachers, she says, now fear consequences if they don’t take the unpaid days.  Nampa Education Association vice president Carmi Scheller says in her building furlough days - which would start in January - were presented as purely voluntary.

“It has varied site to site how the information has been delivered,” Sheller says. “The level of coercion that’s being reported to us has varied, but it is in multiple buildings being presented as a have too, not a voluntary.”

Sheller says the trust between teachers and administrators has started to strain. District spokeswoman Allison Westfall says principles were asked to share information on volunteering with teachers. She says she can’t speak to how that information was presented from building to building.

“The intent was to make sure the information got out so folks who wanted to volunteer knew how they could, and would get the form completed and turned in,” Westfall says. “But it was certainly volunteer.”
 

The form Westfall mentions included a contract addendum for teachers to sign that would make the furloughs part of their contracts. That addendum is also creating waves. The Idaho Education Association says it’s illegal because it skips several steps in Idaho law for changing teacher contracts.  Westfall says the district’s lawyer wrote the addendum. Monday was the deadline for volunteers.

Copyright 2012 Boise State Public Radio

You make stories like this possible.

The biggest portion of Boise State Public Radio's funding comes from readers like you who value fact-based journalism and trustworthy information.

Your donation today helps make our local reporting free for our entire community.