By JESSICA SIEFF
Niles Daily Star

Students, teachers and even administrators are enjoying their first day of spring break today, but when they return, area districts will face the final lap in a tumultuous year.
And the worst is yet to come.

Brandywine Community Schools announced last week negotiations with teachers were facing mediation and Niles Community Schools are still working without a contract.
For everyone in the educational system in Niles and throughout the state, the threat of cuts in teachers’ jobs looms.

“We have to do the official layoffs by the end of April,” Brandywine Superintendent John Jarpe said last week. “And we’re looking at what we need in terms of the dollar amount and there could be more layoffs than we ultimately need.

“But that’s to safeguard,” Jarpe said. “It would be better to err on the side of caution.”

Teacher negotiations in decent economies can be difficult enough with both sides sometimes butting heads on different objectives.

Most in Michigan would say this is not a decent economy.

“It makes it very hard,” Jarpe said. “Teachers who feel like they have a position they want to put forth and then we feel we have our own stance and yes, all of that gets … it’s a whole lot easier to negotiate in better economic times.”

So what does it all mean?

It means, teachers and administration are facing a tense end to the school year as time is running out for speculation and real action will have to be taken when both Jarpe and Niles Superintendent Doug Law present their respective board members with proposed budgets.

Law’s teachers have been working without a contract, he said, since June 2009.

“To date we’ve had 16 formal negotiation sessions,” he said, adding three of those were with a state mediator.

Though he said, “significant progress has been made,” Law added that the “major stumbling block right now is economic issues.”

Up until now much of the talk surrounding state cuts to education funding has been with a healthy measure of speculation.

But the sad reality is starting to reveal itself.

Just over the state line in South Bend, significant cuts to teachers were announced in recent weeks and both Niles and Brandywine districts have mentioned a possible reduction in personnel time and time again.

“Well yes, they’re (teachers) certainly concerned they’re going to be laid off,” Jarpe said. “It’s their livelihood, their jobs.”

Which they are trying desperately to save.

Andy Roberts, president of the teachers’ union for Niles, said Friday concerns are still high.

And though it may not seem so from the administrative side of things, speaking to Roberts, the tensions between both sides are clear.

Following articles printed in both the Star and the South Bend Tribune last month, Roberts made a statement to the board regarding the comments made in those articles, claiming misleading information was being given out.

“We are very disappointed that the board has decided to use this outlet to settle issues that normally would be settled by using the formal process of negotiations,” Roberts said at the time. “There isn’t anyone here that doesn’t understand the severity of our economic situation, however we strongly encourage the board to use the negotiation process to come up with solutions to the problems we all face.”

Both sides have presented Niles’ board of education with proposals on how to save money in the wake of budget cuts.

“We’re going to face what looks to be a major layoff,” Roberts said Friday. “For those teachers who have never been laid off, it’s scary.”

Those teachers, he said, have families and house payments and even student loans still weighing on their shoulders.

“They’re scared,” he said. “They’re worried.”

This week teachers, administration, staff and students may have a break from the daily reminders that the clock is ticking on what school districts will do to survive in the coming years.

But it’s ticking nonetheless.