Killeen Case Sets New Precedent to Help Laid Off Teachers

Killeen: ISD Ordered To Reinstate 4 Terminated Teachers

The state has ordered the Killeen ISD to rehire four teachers who were terminated as part of a cost-cutting move earlier this year.

KILLEEN (July 8, 2011)—Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott ruled Tuesday that the Killeen ISD must rehire four of the 150 teachers whose contracts were not renewed earlier this year as part of a cost-cutting measure in response to deep cuts in state funding for public schools.
The four teachers, all members of the Association of Texas Professional Educators, appealed the reduction in force in May.

One of the four, Aloysius Cooper, whom the KISD had employed for 15 years and who worked as an academic adviser, said he shouldn’t have been terminated in the first place.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had been interviewing for assistant principal jobs, and it’s been stressful,” Cooper said.
“Now, I feel like I at least have the option of returning to my position and to do what I need to do to help students be successful. That’s the bottom line.”
The district was ordered to reinstate the teachers and to pay the four any back pay and benefits from the time their contracts weren’t renewed, but the ruling gives the district the option of paying the teachers one year’s salary from the date they would have been rehired.
Attorney Rick Arnett, who represented the four teachers, said the district’s board violated its local RIF policy by allowing principals to select “less favored or disfavored employees for termination and then failing to try to place them in open positions” for which they were qualified.
“As far as we know, the Killeen cases are the first to be appealed to the commissioner,” he said.
“Under the current political climate, we believe there may be more situations next spring in which districts decide they need to reduce staff,” Arnett said.