Over 60 staffers at Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind face being laid off at the end of the school year as the school moves its Tucson campus, officials say.
ASDB's board of directors on Thursday night voted to move ahead with relocating the campus from its longtime home on West Speedway to an elementary school in Oro Valley that the Amphitheater School District is closing.
In a 5-1 vote, the board voted to lay off 45 full-time employees, along with 19 non-permanent staffers currently working at the school. Five full-time and seven non-permanent staffers at its Phoenix campus also will lose their jobs.
Board member William Koehler, a native Tucsonan and former ASDB assistant superintendent, voted against the layoffs. Board member Earl Terry, of Phoenix, abstained.
"This action will gut this agency of highly-qualified and highly-concerned individuals," Koehler said ahead of his vote, which prompted applause and cheers from the crowd.
The workforce reduction will occur on June 30.
The board also voted 5-2 to finalize closing the West Speedway campus that's been its home for more than 100 years and move the Tucson branch to Copper Creek Elementary School, at 11620 N. Copper Spring Trail, a move first announced in January.
The Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind is moving from its current location at 1200 W. Speedway in Tucson to school in Oro Valley the Amphitheater School District is closing.
Koehler and Terry voted against the move.
Terry, through an interpreter, said he thought the board should delay the vote "and not make a decision tonight." Terry's motion to delay the vote was seconded by Koehler, but was voted down by the other five board members.
A number of teachers working with blind students at ASDB's campus in Tucson were notified weeks ago they were getting laid off. Sources told the Star in January that teachers who are under contract were informed they will no longer be employed after May. Reasons given included budget cuts in the face of a deficit, as well as a declining birth rate and enrollment numbers.
Teachers were informed days before an ASDB community forum on the school's planned move ended abruptly.
Thursday night's meeting followed a last-ditch attempt to halt the board's vote from some families whose children attend the Tucson campus.
Days ahead of the vote, 11 families filed a temporary restraining order request in Pima County Superior Court. It sought to stop Thursday night's vote from taking place.
Judge Jeffrey Bergin ultimately denied their request. He said that while the court was "sympathetic to the concerns" raised by parents, "the Court is statutorily prohibited from considering an injunction designed to prevent the Board from holding a lawful meeting or from lawfully voting."
Melissa Rueschhoff, an attorney representing the families, told the Star on Wednesday that while they would not be filing an appeal of Bergin's ruling, they would seek a temporary restraining order "to ensure the school does not close down, relocate to Oro Valley, and blatantly neglect the truly vulnerable blind and visually impaired students they are duty bound to educate while receiving federal and state dollars to do so."
"We will continue to do everything within our power to advocate for these families who are deservedly owed a duty by the Arizona School for the Deaf and BLIND to be rightfully served, despite the Superintendent’s shameful attempts to remove such services for the blind and visually-impaired students, who are entitled by law to receive a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE)," Rueschhoff said.
