[Mpls] teachers bumping

[Socialist2001 at cs.com]

In a message dated 7/1/2004 2:34:59 PM Central Daylight Time, sabier at visi.com 
writes:

<< When a school is closed the teachers at that school are "excessed,"
 which means that they have the right to bid on an available opening in their
 licensed area and in a program that fits their professional plan and
 experience.  They don't get to bump into anyplace they might choose.  If the
 district has too many excessed teachers, layoffs occur according to
 seniority, creating available positions, which excessed teachers can then bid
 on. >>

In other words, high seniority teachers do have the right to bump lower 
seniority teachers out of their jobs in other schools, at least in the case of 
school closings that produce an excess of excessed teachers districtwide. That 
sounds about right, but that is not the situation that we face going into the 
next school year.

Excessing and laying off teachers on a districtwide basis, along the lines 
described above will be highly disruptive in any event, but in the absence of 
school closings that result in an excess of excessed teachers, excessing and 
laying off teachers on a districtwide basis will not produce a substantially 
different effect, in terms of who does or doesn't get laid off than the procedure 
the district is supposed to followed when there is not an excess of excessed 
teachers districtwide, as described below.

A teacher is "excessed" when a position is eliminated at a school, and if 
there is more than one such position at that particular school, the teacher with 
the lowest seniority is excessed. For example, if one of 3 first grade teacher 
positions is excessed due to falling student enrollment, the teacher with the 
lowest seniority is excessed. 

The district plans to eliminate 213.8 regular classroom positions from this 
year to the next. I expect no fewer than 50 to 100 classroom teachers (out of 
about 1,300) will retire or quit in any event. The vacated positions that have 
not been eliminated should be filled by "excessed" teachers with the proper 
qualifications in order of seniority. If the district has an excess of excessed 
teachers, the excessed teachers who do not move into the vacated positions get 
laid off. 

If you deal with the elimination of teacher positions by excessing and laying 
off teachers on a districtwide basis by seniority, you are bumping a lot of 
teachers out of positions who are not going to get laid off. The lower 
seniority teachers who don't get laid will get bumped out of their jobs and into jobs 
that the higher seniority teachers don't want. 

How are the layoffs going to be done? In my opinion, it would be better to 
follow normal excessing procedures rather than the excessing and laying off 
teachers on a district wide basis. Where do the board members, announced board 
candidates (especially the DFL endorsed candidates), and teachers union 
leadership stand on this issue?

-Doug Mann, King Field
Mann for school board web site:
www.educationright.com