Redline highlights are those AnnArbor.com staff whose names have disappeared from the staff roster.

I wrote about their decision at the time from a personal perspective. Even though I had left the News the previous year to co-found The Chronicle, it was still a place that employed many friends and colleagues I respected. Watching that organization get dismantled was emotional, for many reasons.

Although we began to hear about the layoffs on Thursday last week, we decided not to write immediately about that news. In part, we reasoned that it should be AnnArbor.com’s story to tell first, and I held out hope that executives at AnnArbor.com would be straightforward in letting the community know about their decision, and the rationale behind it.

I also hoped they would wrap into their coverage the news that three other key staff members – news director Amalie Nash, higher education reporter David Jesse and point person for reader interaction Stefanie Murray – had all been hired by the Detroit Free Press. All three left at the end of February. All had previously worked for many years at The Ann Arbor News, and had been initial hires at AnnArbor.com.

Considered separately, either the set of layoffs or the three departures would have had a significant impact on the organization. But with both events taking place within two weeks, it counts as the most dramatic personnel change since AnnArbor.com’s launch.

Community Wall “Reporting”

But the only “reporting” on the AnnArbor.com website – as of Sunday afternoon – was a brief post on Saturday by a reader called glacialerratic. The reader posted a comment on what AnnArbor.com calls its Community Wall, a place where anyone can post pretty much anything. It included a link to a Friday Michigan Radio report about the layoffs, which itself is scant on details.

It was this Community Wall post that prompted a response by Tony Dearing – the firm’s chief content officer, or what’s traditionally called an editor-in-chief – in the comment thread. Here’s what he wrote, in its entirety:

While personnel issues are an internal matter and we don’t discuss them publicly, I can confirm that we reorganized our newsroom this week to put our focus more squarely on local news coverage. As a new organization, we have tried a lot of things. Now that we are well into our second year, the community has told us very resoundingly that what it wants most from us is hard news coverage, particularly in the areas of government, education, police, courts, health, the environment, University of Michigan sports, and business. These areas of coverage account for all but a tiny percentage of our readership and revenue. Meanwhile, we also have put a lot of effort toward other things – including lifestyle topics like Passions and Pursuits, The Deuce, Homes and some areas of Entertainment coverage – that our community has shown much less interest in, and we are scaling back in those areas.

We have made tremendous progress since we launched, and we continue to be very happy with the growth we’re seeing in audience and revenue. But from the beginning, we said that we would be shaped by what the community wants, and the community wants us to focus more sharply on local news reporting. We have repositioned ourselves to throw our energy and resources into our local news coverage and that is how we will operate moving forward as we continue to grow.

That’s just insulting – to those employees who were laid off, to those shell-shocked employees who remain behind, and to the Ann Arbor community, which deserves better.

First off, a “personnel issue” is when your employee gets fired for looking at porn on a work computer. It doesn’t apply to the departure of more than a dozen people – whether they quit or were laid off. Their departure will fundamentally change what gets done at the publication, and how. The fact that most of these departures were from the newsroom has an even more direct impact on the publication. AnnArbor.com has marketed itself relentlessly over the past 18 months as being all about the community. It’s hard to trade in that currency while not being straightforward about decisions that readers actually care about – namely, how you’re reporting the news.

Dearing’s statement that they’ve reorganized is also specious. A look at the current staff directory shows no changes to the organization of the list. The only difference is the disappearance from the page of some people’s names who’ve been laid off.

To confirm exactly who’s missing, and what parts of the publication they worked for, we retrieved the Google cache of the staff page and “diffed” them out – those now missing from the page are highlighted in red: AnnArbor.com staff list highlighting departures. That list includes: Ed Vielmetti, the publication’s lead blogger; James Dickson, a general assignment reporter; photographer Lon Horwedel; two support staff for entertainment – Renee Tellez and Chrysta Cherrie; Pam Stout on the community desk; sports clerk Kaleb Roedel; and sales manager Lisa George.

If the idea of the “reorganization” is to focus more sharply on local news as Dearing contends, it’s not clear how eliminating a general assignment reporter (who in a traditional newsroom would fill in the gaps on local news) would serve that sharper focus. Perhaps even more puzzling is the decision to eliminate lead blogger Ed Vielmetti – whose name was the only one at AnnArbor.com that many members of the community even recognized.

Of those who are now missing, only the job of news director – formerly held by Amalie Nash, who’s now an assistant metro editor at the Detroit Free Press – is posted on the popular JournalismJobs.com employment website. The implication is that AnnArbor.com isn’t making other replacement hires at this point, though that’s unclear. Current K-12 education reporter Kyle Feldscher believes he will be covering David Jesse’s former University of Michigan beat only until a replacement hire is made.

Back to the Future

Dearing’s comment on the Community Wall was disturbingly evocative of a column written by former Ann Arbor News editor Ed Petykiewicz in December 2008, in the wake of buyouts at the newspaper and a shrinking staff. An excerpt [emphasis added]:

In the coming weeks, your News will begin to focus more on local people, local issues and local events.

Some of the changes include more stories about local government, increasingly local flavor in sections such as our Food pages and more columns from our staff.

Over time, we’ll add stories and columns by area residents, who will provide additional and varied views of our communities.

You’ll continue to find a mix of local, state and national news in your newspaper, but our ongoing evolution puts us on a decidedly local path that we’ve discussed for years. It’s what we do best. [.pdf of Petykiewicz's full column]

As it applies to local coverage, Dearing’s Wall comment sounds exactly like the doing-more-with-less motif in Petykiewicz’s piece.

In response to Petykiewicz, I wrote a column that asked a simple question: How can you provide more local content with fewer local reporters?

It’s hard to argue against more local coverage. Yet it prompts the question: does this just mean more local relative to non-local content, or does it mean more local coverage in absolute terms? The staff of the newsroom, during my 12 years there, at least, has been focused exclusively on covering local people, issues, and events. The state, national and international news was picked up through wires services that The News subscribes to. If we see a reduction in wire-service content – not an unreasonable move given that these are costly services – then of course we’ll get “more” local content, relative to everything else. But providing “more” local content in absolute terms requires the folks who’ve always worked exclusively to provide local coverage to provide even more of it.

The brute reality is that there will be fewer people in the newsroom after the buyouts. So how can there be more local news in the paper if there are fewer people to do the reporting? Ed doesn’t address this, so we’re left guessing.

For all the talk about how AnnArbor.com would be dramatically different from The Ann Arbor News in its interaction with the community, Dearing’s comments are all too familiar. We’re still left guessing.

Just a Business?

In my weekly interview on Lucy Ann Lance’s Saturday radio show this past Saturday, she asked why AnnArbor.com is different than any other private business. Why should a news publication be obligated to disclose their management decisions, any more than, say, Tios or Google?

I wasn’t very articulate in my response to Lucy Ann, so I’ll give it another shot here. There is absolutely a difference between a publicly traded company, where certain disclosures are required by law, and a private business like Advance Publications, a privately held Newhouse family company that owns AnnArbor.com. For private companies, there are no legal obligations to disclose internal staffing changes or to release financial information.

But a news publication, I believe, should be held to different standards – especially one like AnnArbor.com, that has tried so desperately to be embraced by the community. If your stated editorial mission is to respond to the community and give readers what they want, you ignore at your own peril some basic communication about these radical staff changes – communication that thus far has been almost completely lacking.

Most readers aren’t idiots. It doesn’t serve your interests well to treat all of them as if they were.

If you accept the premise that readers aren’t idiots, then you should trust that they’ll be well aware of the economic climate, and understand the business constraints at play. While I disagree with many of the decisions made by Steve Newhouse and other executives concerning first The Ann Arbor News and now AnnArbor.com, I certainly understand what it’s like to operate a business in this economy. Since we launched The Ann Arbor Chronicle in September 2008, I have new appreciation for the challenge of managing cash flow – it’s a worry for me every single day.

As a small online-only publication that focuses on coverage of local government and civic affairs, The Chronicle doesn’t have the corporate resources to buy billboard ads or rent two floors of a downtown office building or hire more than two dozen people to staff its advertising department, as AnnArbor.com has. Our plan was to start modestly, stay true to our mission, and hopefully grow our revenues steadily – through voluntary reader subscriptions and local advertising, including many businesses and institutions that support us mainly because they believe in what we do.

We didn’t anticipate the incredible upheaval caused by the closing of The Ann Arbor News, which has made the market significantly more competitive, and confusing for readers and advertisers alike. I’m proud that we’ve been able to establish a reputation for solid, in-depth coverage of the workings of local government, and I hope we continue to have the wherewithal to support our unique journalistic venture, and to grow.

AnnArbor.com has a more mainstream business model, one that seems cast from the same mold as traditional newspapers. It relies on driving traffic to its website – a variation of the old “If it bleeds, it leads” approach to gaining readers, or what’s known these days as “churnalism.” Their new weekly “Best Of” poll – asking readers to vote for different categories, like best brewpub or best grocery store – is designed to achieve the same goal. Advertisers are “partners” – not because they support the publication’s journalism, but because AnnArbor.com works with them to develop ad campaigns like the Groupon-esque “Real Deal.”

For all of that energy put into the advertising and marketing end of the business, the news of last week’s layoffs indicates that AnnArbor.com isn’t meeting its revenue or profit goals. The company hasn’t disclosed what those targets are – I wouldn’t expect them to; we don’t disclose details of our financial performance, either. But I would expect a bit more candor about their general outlook, starting with more openness about their staff changes.

In September of 2009, I participated in a panel discussion at the Kerrytown BookFest with Dearing and others, talking about the future of local media. When pressed about what kind of timeline the new AnnArbor.com would have to prove its financial viability to its owners, Dearing indicated some urgency – he ventured that they’d have about two years from their launch in July 2009 to prove the viability of the model.

If that timeline holds, then this recent retooling could reflect an effort to reduce expenses before the start of the next financial quarter on April 1 – the final quarter they’ll have on the books for an evaluation at their two-year anniversary mark.

I don’t believe the Newhouses will just give up this market – despite the struggles of AnnArbor.com, they still hold essentially a monopoly in the state’s most stable, affluent community.

But this community has been blindsided by their business decisions in the past, and it still stings. Whatever the future holds for them, they owe it to the residents of Ann Arbor to be upfront about what’s coming. Or, in this case, what’s already been done.

About the writer: Mary Morgan is publisher and co-founder of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, which launched in September 2008. She previously worked for The Ann Arbor News for 12 years, where her positions included opinion editor and business editor.

Todd Roberts, superintendent of Ann Arbor Public Schools. (Photos by the writer).

While introducing the item, AAPS superintendent Todd Roberts noted, “This is certainly a very difficult thing for myself and for this board to be recommending tonight,” but said he was hopeful that AAPS will continue to work collaboratively with its employee groups to end up with “as few job reductions as we possibly can.” District officials hope that many of the layoffs will be rescinded before the start of school in the fall.

Last night’s meeting also contained the first of two public hearings on recommendations from the district’s sexual health education advisory committee regarding materials to be used in elementary-level sex education.

Layoffs Ordered

The main item of business before the board was to lay off nearly 16% of the district’s teaching staff starting in June. After board president Deb Mexicotte introduced the item to trustees as a “personnel action,” she offered, “If there is any discussion anyone would like to have before I move this motion, this would be the time to do it … Dr. Roberts, is there anything you’d like to say?”

Roberts began, “I wish there was nothing to say,” and then defined the personnel action the board was being asked to take as “the decision to lay off 191 teachers, all probationary teachers in the district.” He described the action as necessary to deal with the possible elimination of up to 90 teaching jobs outlined in the 2010-11 budget plan.

The list of 191 teachers receiving layoff notices was not made public, but Roberts and teachers’ union president Brit Satchwell confirmed to The Chronicle after the meeting that it contains all probationary teachers except for those who will be receiving tenure this June. Tenure is usually granted in the fourth year of teaching.

The reasoning behind laying off roughly 100 people more than needed is based on the complicated algorithm used to determine teacher seniority, which is outlined in the collective bargaining contract between teachers and the district, and mandated in part by state and federal law. Article 4.813.4 of the contract states, “Probationary teachers shall be laid off on the basis of certification, qualification, degree and experience.”

“Certification” refers to the specific grade levels and subject area endorsements listed on a teacher’s state of Michigan teaching certificate. “Qualification” refers to a teacher’s status as “highly qualified” to teach a specific subject, as delineated in the federal education law No Child Left Behind (NCLB). NCLB mandated that, by 2006, all teachers – new and old – of core subject areas (including foreign languages, and the arts) would have a bachelor’s degree, be certified to teach what they are teaching, and meet one of the following provisions:

• Have a major (or at least 30 credits) in the content/subject they wish to teach; or
• Pass a state-level subject area test; or
• Create a comprehensive teaching portfolio to prove competence in a certain subject; or
• Hold national board certification in the subject they wish to teach.

“Degree and experience” refers to a combination of the highest degree a teacher holds (up to a master’s), the number of years the teacher has taught (state seniority), and the number of years the teacher has taught in AAPS specifically (district seniority).

Brit Satchwell, president of the teachers' union, just after Wednesday's Ann Arbor Public Schools board of education meeting.

In an interview with The Chronicle directly following the meeting, Satchwell explained that the complexity involved in properly applying the contract language essentially makes it very difficult, even impossible, for the district to know exactly which teachers they will not need in the fall before the state-mandated April 30 deadline for issuing layoff notices.

So while teacher retirements, pending state legislation, fluctuating health care costs, and bargaining unit negotiations are still being worked out, the district is essentially forced to lay off a larger number of teachers than it needs to let go up front, and then “call back” as many as it can.

This process of rescinding layoff notices, referred to by Satchwell as “human Tetris,” involves calling teachers back one by one, in order of district seniority, to positions for which they are highly qualified – even if that means involuntarily moving the teachers currently in those positions to other positions for which they are highly qualified. In the end, regardless of how many or which teaching positions are eliminated (which at this point is still uncertain), district seniority is the leading factor determining who gets called back and who remains laid off.

Before the vote at Wednesday night’s meeting, Roberts said that negotiating this situation was the most difficult part of his 21-year career in education, 16 of which he has spent as an administrator. He called the current state of education funding in Michigan and lack of state-level political leadership “unacceptable,” and noted that 3,000 teachers have received layoff notices in Michigan this year.

Though Roberts offered to have Dave Comsa, assistant superintendent for human resources and legal services, and Cindy Ryan, director of human resources, answer any questions board members had regarding the layoff or possible callback process, no questions were asked at the public meeting.  Instead, three board members – secretary Glenn Nelson, treasurer Christine Stead, and Mexicotte – made comments before the vote.

Nelson’s comments echoed and expanded on the concerns he had stated at the previous board meeting regarding class sizes increases. He reiterated that if the problem is addressed through layoffs, class sizes would increase on average 8% in elementary grades, 15% at the middle school level, and 18% at the high schools.

As a parent, he said, he has observed that larger class sizes have the following effects: there is an increase in the likelihood that one difficult student in the class changes the class atmosphere; assignments cannot be as involved since the teacher has more students to evaluate; teachers can be less proactive about offering guidance; teachers are unable to be as reactive in answering questions; and teachers are less able to work creatively with every set of parents or guardians.

“I just hope from the bottom of my heart,” Nelson said, “that we figure out a way to do this without saying that the solution is layoffs.” He added, however, “If we have to, of course, we will. We have a mandate to balance the budget.”

Stead commented on the political climate, and the community’s responsibility in solving the funding crisis. Saying that the stress on staff caused by these layoffs is unacceptable, Stead named the long history of inadequate state education funding as the cause of the current “turmoil.” She then argued that private giving should be encouraged as a way to counter the state’s inadequacies and move the district down a sustainable funding path. Speaking to those being laid off, she asked, “Please bear with us – hopefully, we will get to a good spot.”

Mexicotte then confirmed that there were no further comments or questions, thanked Roberts for speaking to this, and also for his work on this difficult issue, and made the following motion:

“WHEREAS, the largest portion of the Ann Arbor Public Schools’ expenditures are used to pay for employment of its teaching staff, and

WHEREAS, the Ann Arbor Public Schools, for economic reasons, must reduce its teaching staff to reduce costs.

NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved that:

1.   The teachers listed on Attachment A shall be given notice that the Board of Trustees has laid off said teachers effective June 30, 2010.

2.   The Administration is hereby directed to give teachers listed on Attachment A, a copy of this Resolution and a copy of the Teachers Tenure Act, which includes Article VI, Right to Appeal.

3.   All resolutions and parts of resolutions insofar as they conflict with the provisions of this resolution be and the same are hereby rescinded.”

Vice president Irene Patalan seconded the motion. There was no further discussion.

Outcome: The motion to lay off 191 probationary teachers carried unanimously.

Elementary Sexual Education Materials

Roberts began by describing the district’s sexual health education advisory committee (SHEAC) as a collaborative effort between staff and parents. He explained that the committee’s charge was to seek out and review instructional materials to be used in sex education throughout the district, and commended their work, calling it “outstanding.”

Margy Long and Debby Salem, two parents on the SHEAC, came to the podium, and briefly commented on the recommendations, which had been outlined in a memo included in the board’s agenda packet. The recommendations all concern materials to be used in the elementary grades. They include letters and “resource sheets” to be sent to parents, six videos, and a set of lesson plans addressing “life/body changes, puberty, the male and female reproductive systems, human reproduction, personal hygiene, healthy habits, media messages, and postponing sexual intercourse.”

Long mentioned that many of the materials they were recommending had been used in the past, and that the SHEAC’s attempts to find appropriate updated materials were unsuccessful. “Frankly,” Long said, “we have looked country-wide, and it seems many, many schools use these particular videos.” Salem pointed out that the materials are currently in the district’s administrative offices if any member of the public would like to review them. She also reiterated, “Our goal is to keep looking … some of them are very dated.”

Simone Lightfoot asked how a community member could suggest materials to the committee for review, and Amy Osinski, board secretary, confirmed that suggestions could be sent to the SHEAC via the board office.

Nelson thanked the SHEAC members, pointing out the importance of being sure the district’s young people were well-informed about this “matter of life and death.” He asked Long and Salem to say a bit about the composition of the SHEAC, “so we can know … who we are appreciating.”

Long answered that by law, the SHEAC must be 50% parents, which it is. The nine committee members also include a physician, a member of the local clergy, and community health specialists. She also pointed out the goals and objectives of the sexual health education program in middle and high schools were included in the board’s agenda packet because the SHEAC “wanted to get any feedback [the board] might have.”

Patalan stated her appreciation of the SHEAC’s work, saying “It really can be a life-changing piece of our students’ education … You really leave no stone unturned … You want to make sure our kids have the best information, and I really do appreciate that.”

With the brief commendation that “your work is great,” Mexicotte asked Osinski to open the public hearing. Osinski stated that no one had signed up to speak before the meeting, but opened the floor to “anyone here who would like to speak” to the SHEAC’s recommendations. There were no speakers.

Mexicotte encouraged the community to take a look at materials at the board office before the second public hearing on these recommendations, to take place on April 28.

Outcome: This was a first briefing item. Approval of proposed materials will be up for a vote of the board after a second public hearing at the April 28 regular board meeting.

Open Seat on the Board

In reviewing the upcoming board agenda, Mexicotte reminded the public that the board will hold interviews for a candidate to fill its vacancy on May 6. Information on how to apply is on the district’s website.

Minutes Approval

Mexicotte asked for the board’s approval of the minutes of the executive session held on April 14. The motion to approve was made by Stead and seconded by Nelson.

Outcome: The minutes of the April 14 executive session were unanimously approved.

Items from the Board

There were no association reports, and no public commentary at Wednesday’s meeting, but board secretary Nelson did offer two items.

First, Nelson praised the Neutral Zone for their recent “Wine, Word, and Song” fundraiser, which included music and poetry performances by members of the Ann Arbor youth poetry slam team. Nelson mentioned the “wonderful partnership” between the AAPS and the Neutral Zone, and called the performances “absolutely fabulous.”

Secondly, Nelson invited the public to view the exhibit of student art currently on display at the downtown library at 343 S. Fifth Ave. He listed the many AAPS schools who have student work included in the exhibit, and encouraged the community to “make a special trip downtown, or stop in when you’re nearby” to see the “absolutely wonderful art” produced by AAPS students.

The 40-minute meeting was adjourned by president Deb Mexicotte.

Present: President Deb Mexicotte, vice president Irene Patalan, secretary Glenn Nelson, treasurer Christine Stead, trustee Susan Baskett, and trustee Simone Lightfoot. Also present as a non-voting member was Todd Roberts, superintendent of AAPS.

Absent: None

Next regular meeting: April 28, 2010, 7 p.m., at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library, 4th floor board room, 343 S. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]