Galveston ISD is still struggling to get back on it's feet after Hurrican Ike devastated much of the island and it's economy. Facing a lowered student population and a stressed budget, the GISD board of trustees decided it had no choice but to reduce staff.
But instead of the usual pink slips, it is starting with a request for voluntary resignations. Those who submit resignations will receive a percentage of salary based on their years of service with the district as a severance.
It's a creative solution. There may very well be teachers who are more than happy to voluntarily leave the district, especially in Galveston's current unique circumstances. Any resignations will reduce the district's need to layoff people who want and need their jobs, and I applaud GISD for taking this approach. In addition to simply being a very employee-friendly way of handling the crisis, it also makes it abundantly clear to the staff that the Board's motivation really is reduce staff, not to "clean house," as other districts have appeared to do.
But what happens if the district still needs to reduce staff after all the resignations have been turned in? Texas law does allow a district to break teaching contracts mid-year, but sets out very specific rules about when and how to do so.
First, in order to terminate teaching contracts mid-year for financial reasons (non-contract employees can be let go anytime), the school board must declare that a financial exigency exists, after considering all relevant information. This forces open debate and public input on the plan to reduce staff.
Second, once the Board declares the financial exigency and staff reductions are chosen as a means to respond to it, the choice of which contract staff to terminate must be made according to objective, pre-determined criteria. What does that mean? It means the district must have adopted a policy that describes who will be terminated if there is a financial exigency. The policy should clearly describe how to identify the people to terminate - including how to distribute reductions among campuses and how to pick the individual teachers.
Each district adopts their own policy, so there are no statewide criteria. But most districts use a list of the following criteria, in a variety of orders:
proper certification
appraisal scores
years with district
years in teaching
Layoffs (also called reductions in force) are not the time for principals to get rid of their least favorite teachers. The criteria in the district policy must be followed, or the contract termination will fail if challenged.
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