Alice Mercer: Veteran Teachers Not a Priority in High Priority Schools
The salient point is that in addition to making these schools a priority, the staffing at these schools underwent a change that now has created swiss-cheese-like holes in our teaching contracts. You see, the schools are allowed to hire teachers outside the district surplus process, and only have to take surplus teachers they want. Open positions at "priority schools" are not on the district's list of available positions at the surplus meeting. They've made a practice of picking up the least senior teachers, and even brand-new hires from outside the district. This has occurred while elementary teachers with up to 7 years of seniority are still out of work. In addition, they are exploiting a little-used provision of the State Education Code saying these teachers have "specialized training" that other teachers lack, and should be "skipped" in layoffs. That has exacerbated the entire lay-off process as teachers at priority schools with less than 5 years of seniority have never gotten a pink-slip, while teachers with up to 8 years of seniority have, and those with seven never returned Read Full Post >
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