Providence City Council member Cliff Wood answers a question from the audience during a public forum on education at the Martin Luther King Elementary School last night. City Council, State Senate and House members took part in the discussion.

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

PROVIDENCE — The public’s frustration with the way that public school teachers are hired and fired was palpable last night, as parents demanded to know why highly qualified teachers are displaced based on seniority.

A panel of state and local politicians addressed the state of public education in Providence during a two-hour forum sponsored by the East Side Public Education Coalition and the Martin Luther King Elementary School’s Parent-Teacher Organization. The event was held at the school.

The questions ranged from establishing a state funding formula to consolidating school districts, but the topic that generated the most debate involved bumping, a process in which teachers with more seniority displace those with less.

Harlan Rich, one of the leaders of the East Side coalition, described the process as follows: every March, dozens of teachers receive pink slips warning them that they might lose their jobs in the event of a budget shortfall. During the summer, after the School Department determines its budget, teachers are rehired. When the schools are facing deep budget deficits, like they did this spring, bumping based on seniority creates a ripple effect that tears at the fabric of school communities, Rich said.

This summer, some schools lost a third of their staff because of bumping, and principals and teachers alike say that this process makes it difficult, if not impossible, to build on past successes when there is a constant reshuffling of faculty members.

“It’s clear that this is built into state law,” Rich said. “I want to know what the General Assembly is going to do about it.”

House Majority Leader Gordon Fox explained that the so-called bumping law dates back to 1946, when the legislature felt it was important to protect teachers from being fired for arbitrary reasons.

“Bumping is a product of seniority,” Fox said. “But you can’t throw out the baby with the bath water. There has to be a system to replace it.”

That answer didn’t sit well with the audience. Sam Zurier, another member of the East Side coalition, said that Massachusetts fixed this issue in 1993 when the state gave authority over staffing decisions to principals. Why can’t Rhode Island follow their lead?

City Councilman Clifford Wood agreed, adding that Vartan Gregorian Elementary School lost two of its most dedicated teachers this year, teachers who were let go simply for “committing the crime of being in their twenties.”

“I don’t know much about politics,” said Kira Greene, a member of the PTO at Vartan, “but why can’t someone take this one point and bring it to the one person who can fix it? Why can’t someone say, ‘I’ll be responsible.’ That’s what I came here for.”

Fox said that the issue is more complicated than that. Every school contract in Rhode Island has a seniority provision. If the legislature repealed this law, it would negate every teacher contract in 36 school districts — a statement that generated hearty applause.

“If you repealed this statute,” said Sarah Rapport, the school district’s legal counsel, “you would return this prerogative to the local cities and towns. Now, you impair cities and unions from making innovative decisions. The unions are perfectly capable of preventing arbitrary decisions from running rampant.”

The audience clapped enthusiastically.

When a member of the East Side coalition asked Fox if he would be willing to submit legislation to overturn the seniority law, he said, “Absolutely.”

Parents also wanted to know whether the General Assembly would give Providence more local school aid next year. This spring, the legislature refused to approve a 3 percent aid increase proposed by Governor Carcieri, which left the Providence schools with a $6-million deficit and forced the district to increase the class size for special-needs students.

But elected officials held out little hope that the funding situation would improve this year. The state will face a $200-million budget deficit for the next four to five years, Fox said. That leaves the legislature with two options: repeal certain tax cuts or find new revenue sources.

Several officials said they would consider consolidating some of Rhode Island’s 36 school districts. But state Rep. Edith Ajello cautioned against lumping the urban districts into one mega-district. Instead, Rhode Island should look at Raleigh, N.C., which created a single county system that integrated urban and suburban students rather than pit them against each other. State Sen. Rhoda Perry suggested that the state begin this process by consolidating the smaller school districts.

Again, Fox cautioned against doing anything drastic.

“Are you going for cost savings or quality?” he said. “We have to make sure that the cure isn’t worse than the disease. New England has a long history of local control.”

State Rep. David Segal and City Councilman Seth Yurdin also participated on the panel.

lborg@projo.com