SAN DIEGO – High school English teachers, counselors and librarians got an eleventh-hour reprieve from layoffs in the San Diego Unified School District Tuesday when Superintendent Terry Grier called to exempt them from the budget cuts.

A divided school board voted to authorize 617 of the 903 pink slips that were issued to certificated employees in March.

Spared in the work-force reduction were 102 high school English teachers, 76 counselors and 15 campus librarians. An additional 93 layoff notices were rescinded due to a combination of circumstances, including miscalculations in retirement dates and errors in seniority rankings.

Grier has been consumed with the district's anticipated $80 million budget deficit since he took office less than two months ago when the budget-cutting strategy was already in place. He has visited 22 schools, where students, teachers and parents helped him decide to preserve high-priority positions.

“Of all the cuts, the kids repeatedly said don't cut our counselors,” Grier said. “It's not that other things are not important, this has to do with priorities.”

Saving counselors and English teachers will help the district accomplish the school board's goal of increasing graduation rates, he said. What's more, Grier said it makes no sense to eliminate librarians after voters paid to build new libraries with the Proposition MM bond measure.

School board President Katherine Nakamura and trustees John de Beck and Mitz Lee approved the layoffs. Luis Acle and Shelia Jackson opposed them, saying the district should find a way to protect all teaching positions. Acle, Jackson and Lee are all up for re-election.

During the tense school board meeting, emotional teachers and parents pleaded with trustees to reject layoffs.

“I know we call this a budget crisis, but I think it's more than that, I think it's a morality crisis,” said Guillermo Gomez, who will be laid off from Lincoln High School, where he teaches social justice. A former San Diego County Teacher of the Year for his work in Chula Vista, Gomez took a pay cut and lost his seniority in Chula Vista to accept a job at the rebuilt Lincoln High.

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