Know your rights

Excessing

Jun 29, 2009 2:36 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 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.

Principals decide in which license area there needs to be a contraction. The teacher with the least seniority within the license area will be excessed first. Probationers are excessed before those who have completed probation. Those who are at risk of being “in excess” at the commencement of the following school year must receive written notification no later than June 15 (Teachers CBA, Article 17B, Rule 12). Excessing should occur before the 15th day of the term.

Job security guaranteed

If you are excessed, you can, like all other teachers who have not been excessed, apply for any or all citywide vacancies in your license area. Vacancies are posted online through the Open Market Transfer Web site starting April 15.

If you do not get hired right away, or if you do not apply for any position, the Department of Education is supposed to send you for interviews for a vacancy in your license area within your district. Presently the DOE is not doing this. We are grieving the DOE’s refusal to send excessed teachers for interviews.

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) pool in your original school or in another school in your district. You will continue to receive your regular pay, accrue seniority, and enjoy health and pension benefits.

On May 6, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein directed principals to fill almost all vacancies for teachers, guidance counselors and social workers from current DOE staff, including ATRs. This freeze on hiring outside the system partially exempts new schools, which must hire 60 percent of their staff from within the current DOE system.

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 the same 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 applicants from the closing school who meet the school’s qualifications.

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.

Rule 3

Rule 3 is an excessing rule for common branch teachers serving in junior high and intermediate schools, or high school-licensed teachers in junior high and intermediate schools, or secondary teachers serving in elementary schools.

With Rule 3, if the common branch teacher has been teaching the same subject area for three years in a row, he/she is entitled, for excessing purposes only, to be grouped with the probationary teachers licensed in that particular subject area; for example, math, science, social studies or English.

They do not become probationary teachers; they are just grouped with the probationers for excessing purposes.