Booker T. Washington High School learned yesterday it would lose a teacher today.
It’s called a trim when Tulsa Public Schools decides to move a teacher based on enrollment numbers. School officials say they were being trimmed for having 1,331 students instead of 1,334. TPS spokesman Chris Payne said Superintendent Keith Ballard reversed the decision today.
"We have not had a reduction in enrollment at Booker T.," Payne said. "The way it works there is if we were down a few students, we pull new ones in because there's always a waiting list. So, no, they are not losing a teacher."
Booker T. history teacher John Waldron estimates the school has added 100 students but lost 20 percent of its staff since 2008. He said if the trim went forward and no teacher volunteered, the principal would have to choose someone.
"It's often the youngest, newest, freshest teachers who get trimmed," Waldron said. "They're starting their career out, and they get told one day that they're being shuffled off to another school or maybe to sub duty the next day. And I'm afraid that, that kind of treatment drives a lot of good people out of education."
Waldron also said TPS was more than a week late in notifying the school.
