HUNDREDS OF TEACHERS MAY BE FIRED EMERGENCY CREDENTIALS TO END.

Byline: Helen Gao Staff Writer

Hundreds of California teachers with emergency credentials, including more than 900 in the Los Angeles Unified School District, are on the verge of losing their jobs less than one week before the start of school because of a federal requirement to staff high-poverty schools with ``highly qualified teachers,'' officials said Tuesday.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires so-called Title I schools - high-poverty campuses - to staff their classrooms with ``highly qualified teachers.''

To comply with the law, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing decided Aug. 15 to phase out emergency permits and waivers given to teachers who have not yet been credentialed or who are not in a credentialing program.

Under No Child Left Behind law, a ``highly qualified teacher'' is defined in California as one who has passed competency tests in the subjects that he or she teaches and has either earned a credential or is enrolled in a program leading to credentialing.

The LAUSD has 266 teachers, whose emergency permits or credentialed waivers have expired or are due to expire Monday, the day before the fall term starts in schools on a traditional calendar.

An additional 700-plus teachers on the LAUSD payroll hold permits that will expire in the next nine months.

The commission does not have a count of emergency-credentialed teachers in California who do not meet the definition of ``highly qualified'' teachers.

Deborah Hirsh, the LAUSD's chief human-resources officer, said the commission's decision - coming so close to the first day of school - will bring chaos.

With so little notice to find qualified replacements, Hirsh said, the district could end up with classrooms full of students without teachers.

``I don't know what we are going to do. If we follow this rule to the letter, that could happen. We can't do stupid things,'' said Hirsh, who argued that it makes no sense to put in substitute teachers when the emergency-credentialed teachers might do a better job.

``It's outrageous. There are good teachers in that group. They shouldn't be all treated the same. We should keep the good teachers and help them. This should be done in a good way.''

District officials don't know the exact number of emergency-credentialed teachers who could lose their jobs, because some of the teachers hold duplicate emergency permits or waivers.

Some of the teachers might also have since enrolled in the district's credentialing intern program or a university credentialing program.

Hirsh and officials in other urban districts, including Long Beach Unified, are lobbying the commission for relief. Marilyn Errett, a spokeswoman for the commission, said the agency is working on an interim solution after hearing complaints from Los Angeles Unified and other districts.

No school district representative protested at the meeting when the commission made the decision to phase out emergency permits and waivers, Errett said.

``The commission has informed school districts that they may request reconsideration of the Aug. 14 action at the commission's Oct. 2 meeting.

``In the meantime, staff is working on a possible interim solution to provide the flexibility the school districts have requested,'' said Errett.

The United Teachers Los Angeles president, John Perez, is also calling for the commission to rescind the decision.

Helen Gao, [phone]

helen.gao(at)dailynews.com