Know your rights

Excessing

May 8, 2008 1:41 PM

There are times when a school reduces the size of its faculty, such as when it experiences an unexpected drop in student enrollment, loses a budget line or, pursuant to state or federal law, is being closed, redesigned or phased out. This is called “excessing.” It is a displacement, but it is quite different from a layoff or a firing.

In effect, no later than the 15th day of a school term, the least senior teacher in the license area being downsized is declared in “excess.” In 2005, the union negotiated a new contractual provision that created — unless there is a citywide financial emergency where layoffs kick in — rock-solid job security, something that excessed teachers never had.

Job security guaranteed

If you are excessed, you can apply for any or all citywide vacancies in your license area (they are posted online). Most important, except in the rare case of a citywide fiscal emergency, you can no longer be laid off.

If you do not get hired right away, or if you do not apply for any position, the Department of Education must send you for interviews for a vacancy in your license area within your district. (While we all agree that you cannot be sent without your consent to interview outside your district, we are currently grieving the issue of who is responsible for placement — the contract says the DOE is, but the DOE has tried to shift that responsibility to individuals.)

If you have been repeatedly unsuccessful in obtaining a transfer or a regular teaching position after being excessed, you can receive, upon request, individualized assistance from the DOE’s Division of Human Resources on how to maximize your chances of success in being selected for a transfer.

If you do not secure a new full-time school assignment, you will be assigned to the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) in your original school or, if that is not possible, in another school in your district. There you will work covering the program of teachers in short-term or long-term absences while continuing to receive your regular pay and benefits.

The DOE will no longer let principals take an excessed person off the school’s budget until that person has a job — unless the reason for the excessing was beyond the principal’s control. This has helped stop attempts by some principals to excess staff in order to realize budgetary savings. In addition, unless a citywide emergency layoff situation exists, the UFT and the DOE agreed to stop the bumping of less senior teachers from their positions.

More than 7,000 teachers have been able to secure transfers via the open market transfer plan over the past two years. But the DOE has not treated ATRs fairly. The weighted student funding formula, introduced by Schools Chancellor Joel Klein in January 2007, put more experienced teachers at a disadvantage on the open market because principals assumed full responsibility for school budgets, including the cost of teacher salaries. Under pressure from a labor-community coalition, the DOE last spring agreed to a “hold harmless” agreement intended to both ensure that stable schools did not lose funding and to put senior teachers on a more equal footing in seeking transfers. Under that agreement, when a senior teacher resigns or retires, the school retains the equivalent of that teacher’s salary in its budget, giving the principal the ability to hire another senior teacher at equal cost.

The union sued the DOE in April 2008 for age discrimination because the union found that despite the ameliorating effects of the “hold harmless” agreement, the new funding system had still created a financial disincentive to hire senior teachers.

Pedagogues in closing schools

If you work in a school that is closing or being phased out, you have the right to apply and be considered for positions in any new schools in their first through fourth year of existence that have opened up in your building. Under Article 18D of the UFT contract, a minimum of 50 percent of the positions in the new schools are reserved for the most senior qualified applicants from the closing school if sufficient numbers of displaced staff apply.

Any remaining vacancies at the new school are to be filled by that school’s Personnel Committee from among transfer applicants, excessed staff and/or new hires. Candidates must hold appropriate credentials.