L.A. Unified teachers will no longer be laid off strictly based on seniority

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday approved what would be a landmark settlement that radically departs from the traditional practice of laying off teachers strictly on the basis of seniority. The agreement would cap the number of those dismissals at virtually all schools in the nation's second largest district.

The legal pact, approved after a lengthy closed session, also would eliminate layoffs at 45 new or struggling schools, many of which have disruptive turnover rates from layoffs.

The proposed settlement, which requires approval by a judge, lays out one of the most sweeping reforms to teacher layoffs in the nation's school districts, which generally follow a "last hired, first fired" approach.

-- Jason Song and Howard Blume

Photo: Marshall Tuck, right, chief executive of the Partnership for L.A. Schools, smiles as ACLU Chief Counsel Mark D. Rosenbaum announces the landmark lawsuit settlement at a news conference Wednesday at L.A. Unified headquarters. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Chris Miss]

The article isn't clear and is too short.

If the seniority system isn't honored, a whole other can of worms opens up. For example, to save money the district will be motivated to fire teachers regardless of their performance. Teachers with seniority could be targeted unfairly, especially when you consider that it isn't their fault the district's bureaucracy is the one wasting the taxpayers' money.

There is no perfect system.

[Carol]

So why is eliminating layoffs at new schools better than not laying off by seniority?

The district needs an incentive plan so that new schools are not staffed entirely with new teachers. Most of them in their first years are zoos, with nearly all young, inexperienced teachers.

[Ira]

It would make sense to put some sort of caption with a picture like that, don't you think?

Who is that, and why is he smiling?

It seems that for the people who have been with the district longer, and are possibly closer to retirement would be pretty disappointed to find out that they are going to be fired just before their retirement begins... I couldn't understand why a judge would agree to this settlement in any way, shape or form...?

[Dick Diamond]

How can you comment on an agreement if you don't know what's in the agreement?

[BAM]

Slowly.... but... surely....

[Jay]

Thanks for not saying anything in this article.

[LAammy]

Finally! If older teachers always keep their jobs at the expense of newer ones, newer teachers will stop joining the profession and schools can't improve!

[JLMS]

so when can I get my permanent status back? this long term sub gig is saving the District some money while I still have to perform all the duties and obligations of a full time teacher!

[J. Eric Womack]

It is also important to note that as administrators at the Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters are laid off, they have the right to a position at disctrict school sites, bumping seated school site administrators from their positions. Will LAUSD administrators be held to such standards?

[cga]

Light at the end of the tunnel. I wonder what the union will have to say about this. The injunction filed due to this case saved my job this year. It is time for there to take a step toward equity in our schools.

[Eve]

Good. It's about time.

[tonysam]

Veteran, senior teachers (read more expensive) are about to get the shaft by the school district. Make no mistake: This has NOTHING to do with teacher "quality" and everything to do with wholesale age discrimination and cheating veteran teachers out of their full retirement benefits.

[Bobby]

I think this is the right move to make. Laying off teachers based ONLY on the date they were hired is counter-productive to the goal of learning. I saw a good blog post related to this on Revolution Prep's blog recently: http://testprepsuccess.revolutionprep.com/2010/08/teacher-performance/

[KW]

A long overdue policy change.

[Seniority, qualification,experience, and effectiveness is what makes a teacher]

Did the Union in LA agree on this deal? This seems unconstitional? It's a sad day for teachers in LA schools, and I hope they fight this decision.

[corruption1]

In the 30 years I have lived in Los Angeles I have watched the LAUSD play many “Games” with the system. The worst one was the waiver of Teaching Credentials for hundreds of alleged Teachers without formal training or even Highschool Diplomas. This was done with the excuse that they were bi-lingual and severely needed to teach Mexican Children in the system who shouldn’t have been there anyway. Once they had this Army of Educators in place the Credentialed Teachers were continuously promoted into Administrative Positions throughout the system with ever increasing salaries for doing little or nothing during the work week. Now you have an inverted pyramid of “Sluffers” and schools that are largely Hispanic throughout Los Angeles surrounded by fences to keep them in for the “Roll Call Money”. The dropout and failure rate is the highest in the world for children who are babysat and “Gang Central” and never educated. This is the LAUSD who, when required to pass State Tests to graduate, taught the kids how to pass the tests all year and still couldn’t pass them. We spend Billions in Citizen Tax Dollars educating another Country’s children and you talk about “Seniority” for teachers. You don’t have but 20% of your teachers who are qualified to teach anything and the rest who can take “Roll Call” for State and Federal money and Recess. The LAUSD is a slush fund about to run out of “Slush”.Fire everybody and start over with real teachers and some real students!!!!

[Rene Garcia]

I feel by taking away the seniority factor, I feel good and bad things can happen. First the Bad, Seniority is in place for a reason. There are a bunch of good teachers that have been around along time and can be easily targeted to lay off just because the district needs to save money. But also The good is that there are also some teachers that have been around along time that don't care anymore, they lost the excitement to teach. They are now like, hey I've been here along time they wont touch me. No I feel lays offs should be based on performance. Every year teachers should get evaluated and that should be the bases in granting pay increases and lays offs.

[CITIZEN]

This is terrible: Everybody knows, a teacher in the district teaching for years, with a master's degree probably makes 80 grand. You can fire two of them, and keep five right out of college teachers. Your reason is simple, they were young and hungry. Your real reason, they were cheaper and could cover more classes and students with five teachers. Not to mention, benefits (they are right out of college, now you are covering one person instead of a family our four to six) and retirement. This practice is totally wrong!! Anybody who supports this is a fool. These teachers are right out of college with little to no experience. You never want to give the decision making power over to the districts. Ultimately they are gonna be about dollars and scents. Can we remain solvent for the next two years? Sure we can, let's just fire the people with the most tenure. Those people usually have two masters, dual crendentials, and the biggest families. Look how much money we saved!!!

[altalks21]

Fortunately! If good teachers always keep their jobs at the expense of newer,unexperienced ones, your kids education will improve.

[J.R.]

Statistics do not lie, keep all the high performing teachers young or old, which is probably 40-50% of the district if you go by API scores. LAUSD is not a very good district(in comparison to other districts) as a whole so we need to keep the best teachers and forget the rest.