Teacher contract compromise filed

TCTA and other education groups have been working on a legislative proposal that would help both teachers and school districts deal with a very specific, but crucial, aspect of the current budget crisis: the applicable timelines in current law for contract nonrenewal.A bipartisan group of key Senate leaders held a press conference on Feb. 24, 2011, to announce the filing of SB 912, which represents compromise language to provide some partial, temporary relief. TCTA was heavily involved in the development of the proposal, and participated in the press conference.

BACKGROUND

• Because of the state’s budget crisis, districts are expecting major reductions in education funding, and many are planning to cut jobs at the local level.
• Most teachers are employed under a term contract, and the law requires that if a district does not wish to renew a teacher’s term contract for the next school year, it must provide written notice to the teacher no later than 45 days before the last day of instruction. In most cases, this date falls in early to mid-April.
• Right now, the only information districts have to work with is a worst-case scenario, but the budget picture could look significantly better by the end of the legislative session in late May. Legislators could approve additional revenue, or use the Rainy Day fund, or take advantage of accounting maneuvers to be able to increase education funding over the amounts proposed in the base budget.
• Since the law requires notice of nonrenewal before districts will know how much funding will be available, districts are likely to “over-notify” employees of nonrenewals. This is a problem for both districts and teachers.

THE COMPROMISE

• Although the associations representing school boards and school administrators have been seeking permanent changes to salary/legal protections, both groups agreed to the temporary compromise language in SB 912 developed in conjunction with the teacher groups and the senators.
• The proposed language would stretch out the time frame for a teacher who receives a nonrenewal notice to request and receive a hearing, allowing for the possibility of a last-minute “reprieve” once districts know more about their state funding levels. (Note:  probationary contract teachers - usually new teachers within their first three years of employment with a district or experienced teachers within their first year of employment in a new district - are not entitled to a contract nonrenewal hearing pursuant to current law.)
• Under this legislation as proposed, the deadline of 45 days prior to the last day of instruction for notifying a teacher of proposed nonrenewal does not change. However, a teacher would have up to 30 days after receiving notification of a proposed nonrenewal to request a hearing (current law allows for only 15 days) and the district would have up to 15 days to hold the hearing. This extension of the hearing timeline may allow districts to have a better budget picture before actually moving forward with the process of a hearing.
• The proposal also addresses districts’ concerns about large numbers of hearing requests, particularly in districts anticipating high numbers of contract nonrenewals, by allowing districts to opt to have hearings conducted by an independent hearing officer who would make recommendations to the board of trustees, which would then make the actual nonrenewal decision.
• The language does not fully address all of the concerns of either teacher or administrator groups, but should help alleviate some of the consequences of the potential over-notification of nonrenewals by relaxing the timeframe in which the process of nonrenewal must be conducted.

FUTURE ISSUES

• As noted above, the administrator and school board associations have been advocating permanent changes in law that would weaken teacher salary and legal protections. TCTA’s position is that this temporary budget situation warrants temporary solutions.
• In the press conference, senators noted repeatedly that this was a “first step” – there are many other issues yet to be addressed, including whether districts can be given the authority to reduce salaries and/or implement furloughs (unpaid days off).
• Educators MUST stay up-to-date on local school board activity since many crucial decisions about how to implement budget cuts will be made at this level. As always, we urge you to attend all meetings and make every effort to be involved in any budget planning activities.