Between 150 and 200 Eastside Catholic High School students staged a sit-in on the school grounds in Sammamish on Monday, protesting a decision by the school not to rehire 15 teachers.

Eastside Catholic, which is funded by tuition revenue and private donors, appears to be suffering similar economic pressures being experienced by its public school peers. The tough economy has seen a drop in new enrollments, as well as a fall in gifts and donations. With fewer students at school, there was a need for fewer teachers.

According to Eastside Catholic’s Director of Communications Patti Finley, the decision not to renew the contracts of the 15 teachers was “purely an economic decision.”

But it was one that students said was done without consulting the school community, and they believe that, at a time when the school was making a number of other purchases and facilities upgrades, there may have been better ways to bridge the budget gap.

“There was a bit of gossip over the weekend, that they were going to layoff a number of teachers. But on Monday morning several teachers confirmed it,” Eastside Catholic senior Kelsey Miller, told The Reporter on Monday afternoon. “After a short break in one of our morning classes, about 15 seniors gathered together and discussed how we felt about it, and what we thought we should do.”

The small group of seniors decided to stage a sit-in – gathering in the school’s courtyard.

Miller said that School Chaplin, Father William Heric, “tried to talk us out of it, and told us to go back to class.”

“Over the course of the morning, more and more students started to join us. By about 10:30, or 11, we had more than 150,” Miller said. The students returned to classes after the lunch break.

While the decision to stage a sit-in may have been impromptu, the students were well organized and cohesive.

Students leaders spoke to those assembled to discuss why they were protesting. Others contacted the local press, took photos, and shot a video of the event for dissemination to media.

Miller said that while the students understood the financial pressure the school was under, such a decision should have been preceded by some student and parent outreach, as has been the case recently with the Lake Washington and Issaquah school districts.

She added that some of the teachers whose contracts would not be renewed were immensely popular with their students, and had a profound impact on those in their classes.

“Each year we fill out teacher evaluation forms, which include our own experiences with teachers,” Miller said. “Why didn’t they look at the teacher evaluations? That is one of things we wanted to school to answer – ‘do you take our opinions into account?'”

A number of students said they asked this question of new School President and Head of School, Sister Mary Tracy, who appeared before the protesting students later in the day.

“She said she didn’t know about the teacher evaluation forms,” Miller said.

On Monday, Eastside Catholic was downplaying the student unrest.

Finley described the protest as a “gathering of students,” which was “peaceful and productive.”

“Sr. Mary addressed the students and answered questions,” Finley wrote to in an e-mail to The Reporter.

But student reports of the interaction between staff and students described a scene of less harmony.

“We had the question and answer session with Sister Mary Tracy, and she answered all of our questions, but they were not what we wanted to hear. All of the students are very (ticked) off, you could say,” one student wrote to The Reporter via e-mail. A number of students said they were left unsatisfied by Sister Mary’s explanation.

“These were teachers who had been here a good while, teachers who had done great things in the school, and for the students,” an impassioned Miller said. “Not wanting to name names, but one of the teachers ran a very prominent retreat program. It changed lives. She dedicated so much of her personal time to that. She wasn’t just a teacher, she was more than that for many students.”

Juxtaposed against this, Miller said recently the school had installed two flat-screen televisions in the girls locker room.

“Things like that just made us think, aren’t there other places the money can come from,” she said. “It’s our responsibility as students to stand up, and to have our voices heard.”

According to Finley, the televisions, and a number of other improvements around the school, had come from private donations and designated fundraisers.

When the dust had, mostly, settled on Tuesday, Sister Tracy told The Reporter that the school could have handled the situation better.

“We couldn’t change the reality of the layoffs,” she said “But I would, given a rewind, have given more education ahead of time to our families.”

Sister Tracy said that Monday was the first she had heard of the two flat-screen televisions, and added that in future she would encourage donors to contribute their money more appropriately.

“Even though a television does not equate to a teacher’s salary, I agree that it does send a mixed message,” she said. “If someone came to me and said, ‘I’d like to buy a TV for the locker rooms,’ I would definitely redirect them.”

Sister Tracy said the school had worked to ensure the 15 teachers were covered by unemployment benefits, and said that one teacher had been retained in a part time capacity, hosting French language seminars outside the school.

“The enrollment numbers came in lower than we expected. So we found ourselves with too many teachers,” she said. “While we’re much more than a corporation, when we’re talking about a $20 million budget, we must become a corporation at that point. And the reality is 80 percent of our budget goes to salaries.”

Sister Tracy said that class ratios would remain at between 20 – 22 students for every teacher.

“The faculty cuts touched every department, as enrollment touches every department,” she said.

Independent schools’ ability to shed staff based on performance, curriculum or enrollment needs, contrasts that of the Issaquah and Lake Washington school districts, which are forced to cut staff based solely on seniority, regardless of their area of speciality or abilities.

According to a spokesperson from the Washington Education Association, there is no union representation for Catholic or independent school teachers in Washington.

Finley said that the exact number of teachers to be let go would depend on how the school’s finances unfold in coming months.

“It doesn’t mean they won’t be hired when the budget is finalized.”