Public Employee Press

Grim holidays for laid-off members
"This is going to be a rough holiday."

The layoff that hit Parent Coordinator Regina Dudley on Oct. 7 endangers the health and education of her two sons, Devante, 18, and Sayquan, 10.

Devante was looking forward to his freshman year at Virginia Union University, where he planned to major in graphic design. Without his mother's steady job and paycheck to help pay for tuition and expenses, Devante's college dream has now been deferred.

Sayquan, a fifth grader with Asperger syndrome and impaired hearing, needs weekly therapy sessions at Brookdale University Hospital, where he meets with a social worker and a psychiatrist to deal with his special needs. "They already told me that my insurance has run out and won't even cover his next session," said the single mother who lives with her two boys in Brooklyn.

"I'm real proud of Sayquan. He's doing so well now in school too," said Dudley, who worked at the School for Global Studies in Brooklyn.

With a dozen years under her belt working for the Dept. of Education as a drug counselor and Parent Coordinator, Dudley was blindsided by the sudden layoff notice from the DOE, but she is determined to keep her head above water.

"I'm going to hang in there," she says about her difficult circumstances. "It's going to be a rough holiday, but my kids need me now, more than
ever."