Public Employee Press

LAYOFFS: The human toll
Fired member fears foreclosure


"The kids really need School Aides, and so do the teachers. I love my kids." — Danna Nelson, Local 372

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

School Aide Danna Nelson teared up as she told how much she loved the job she would soon lose.

“I have a heart and I think I was meant to be here,” said Nelson in early October, when the city announced its plan to fire 530 School Aides.

Legal action by the union held off the mass layoffs for four weeks, but the ax finally fell on Friday, Nov. 13, after a judge let the firings go ahead as the legal battle continues.

“The kids really need School Aides, and so do the teachers,” said Nelson. “I love my kids.”

School Aides’ duties include monitoring hallways and cafeterias, supervising recess, assisting teachers with office tasks and helping schoolchildren get on and off buses. But School Aides like Nelson bring a lot more to the job.

“Every day kids come to me and say, ‘Miss Nelson, I need a hug,’ ” said Nelson, 42, who has built a special rapport with the kids at P.S. 181, a pre-kindergarten to fifth-grade school in Queens.

She kept her eye out for children who arrived at school with empty stomachs, making sure they got healthful meals. She took special interest in troubled and hyperactive youngsters, offering a sympathetic ear to discuss their problems at home or in school.

News of Nelson’s layoff devastated the children. Fourth- and fifth-graders held a goodbye gathering for her, marked by many tears and hugs, and gave her letters and drawings. The same day, the teachers and other staffers held a luncheon for her.

Kaylin, the student president, wrote in a card she made, “I think of you as a teacher cause you taught me things like how not to be so mean, and how to be nicer to people, you were like my mom at school I could tell you anything and you will help me with them I will truly and dearly miss you. PS: you are my inspiration.” On its cover, the card has a computer drawing of an African American girl and a simple message: “Mrs. Nelson don’t leave!!!”

In a card with hearts and a sad face on its cover, Alexandra Brathwaite said, “I will miss you so much. I feel like my heart was ripped down the middle. I don’t know what to do.”

Nelson’s layoff is her second in four years. When she lost her job as an event planner in 2005, she and husband Rodney Nelson Sr., a city bus driver, fell behind on their mortgage. They beat off their bank’s foreclosure attempt and got back on their feet financially when Nelson, who has an associate’s degree, got the Aide job.

But now the couple worries that the DOE layoff will cost them their home.

The Nelsons live in a two-story Cambria Heights house purchased by her parents, who were the second African American family to move into the neighborhood. Her father was an early member of the famed R & B group, The Drifters, and she told PEP she enjoyed accompanying him on tours.

Their three youngest children, Raylen, 1, Ryan, 8, and Rodney Jr., 12, live with the couple; Lenore, 25, and Sherie, 23, are on their own. Sherie, a DC 37 member, lost her Public Health Assistant work at the Health Dept. this summer.

“It’s scary,” said Nelson, to be fired during the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression. The country’s unemployment rate is 10.2 percent, the worst in a quarter century, and the rate for African American workers is 15.7 percent.

“Everybody is losing their job,” Nelson said. “My husband says he will have to work lots of overtime. We have talked about leaving the city.”

The Nelsons’ hardship reflects how the recession and real estate crisis have battered working-class minority families in Queens. A recent Pew Research Center study showed that foreclosures are hitting especially hard in areas with large African American and Latino communities, such as Queens.

The Nelsons are struggling to meet their rising variable-rate mortgage while their property value has fallen from $480,000 to $300,000. Nelson believes they are “under water,” meaning that they owe more than their home is worth, which would make moving hard. “We are behind on our mortgage and we don’t know what will happen,” she said.

Nelson often breaks down in tears as she worries about the future, yet she manages to keep an upbeat appearance, and she is hopeful about landing on her feet soon. As number four on the callback list, she is optimistic about returning as a School Aide if the education budget improves.

“Thank God the Lord gave me the strength to keep going,” she said.