The Providence School Department has notified 270 staff, mostly teachers, that they will need to apply for different jobs this spring as a result of ending one-year positions and failure to meet certification requirements.
The U.S. Justice Department has ordered the school district to hire more English as a Second Language teachers after the federal department found rampant deficiencies in the way the Providence schools educate students who do not speak English proficiently, the Providence Journal reported.
Tenured staff will remain employed with the district next year but their titles or duties may change. In February the district informed about 50 elementary school teachers that they must enroll to be certified to teach English as a second language or they will be reassigned.
Jeremy Sencer, vice-president of the Providence Teachers Union, said Saturday that some teachers agreed to pursue the certification but still got displacement notices, the newspaper reported.
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