Longtime FBISD teachers not layoff-proof

If the Fort Bend school district has to lay off any teachers, how many years they have worked for the district won't pull a lot of weight.On Monday, the school board voted 5-2 to approved a change in policy that puts seniority at the bottom of a list of criteria used to decide who should go first if layoffs are needed.
Trustees Daniel Menendez and David Reitz, who is seeking a second term in May, voted against the change.

What are the criteria?

The four criteria had been in the following order: certification, performance evaluation, seniority, and professional background, which includes training and work experience related to the job assignment.
Before the vote, the board policy on layoffs placed seniority in the district above professional background. In other words, those with more years of service in the district had a better chance to be retained when the district cut its workforce.
But the administration recommended that the order be changed to give professional background more importantance than seniority.
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District gives an example
Carolyn Hanahan, the district’s in-house attorney, explained the rationale in a hypothetical example of two special education teachers: one with 30 years in the district and the other 10 years, but both certified and with great performance reviews.
The 10-year teacher has gone through plenty of professional training and had a wealth of experience of working with children who are autistic or with emotional disabilities while the 30-year teacher has not. The 10-year teacher is regarded as more valuable to the district, Hanahan said.
“This is to value the quality and what the person brings to the district as opposed to just being here for a long time,” Hanahan said.
She said the change in the board policy is not age discrimination.
Chief Human Resources Officer Rhonda McWilliams said the determination on who has greater value to the district is made by the central administration with campus-level input.
Will it affect morale?
Menendez cited potential “impact on the morale” with the change.
“The unintended message is your loyalty to the district is less valued,” he said.
The change stirred concerns among representatives of the Fort Bend Employee Federation, a district teacher union, as well as some teachers who attended Monday's meeting.
“One would assume if an employee was not a quality employee, the district would have discovered it early on, and, after trying some type of remediation, dismissed the employee for poor performance,” said union representative Dwight Harris. “Allowing professional background to take precedent over seniority assumes that the person’s professional background was not considered when hired.”
James Howard, a union field organizer, described the policy change as a cost-saving move to get rid of longtime employees who are paid more than those with shorter service.
“You are messing with these people’s livelihood,” he said. “They put in 25 or 30 years in the district and they are looking for stability and security in retirement. The board should look at other issues to deal with this budget crunch and look at cutting and combining some of the high-end administrative positions.”