The parties in a 4-year-old lawsuit challenging mass layoffs of teachers at low-income middle schools in Los Angeles Unified announced a settlement Tuesday that an attorney called a potential model for creating a stable work force in schools beset by teacher churn.
The deal in the Reed v. the State of California lawsuit will provide $25 million for additional administrators, mentor teachers and teacher training in 37 middle and high schools where there had been low student performance and high turnover of inexperienced teachers. The extra resources will provide a consistent corps of “highly trained teachers you can count on to be there year to year,” said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which represented students filing suit. Higher teacher retention rates and specialized training, in turn, will shield both the staff and students at those schools in the event of another wave of layoffs, he said.
When filed by attorneys on behalf of students at three Los Angeles Unified middle schools in 2010, the lawsuit challenged the state law mandating teacher layoffs based on seniority. That case preceded Vergara v. the State of California, the lawsuit filed by the nonprofit group Students Matter in 2012 that targets the same statute, along with legal protections establishing teacher tenure and due-process dismissal procedures. The Los Angeles County Superior Court will rule on the Vergara lawsuit by mid-summer.
With the settlement, the Reed case ended up taking a different tack, switching from an effort to overturn the layoffs-by-seniority law to a negotiated agreement to protect vulnerable students from the existing law’s potential impact. Plaintiffs’ lawyers in the Reed lawsuit had argued that the disproportionately high percentage of layoffs at the middle schools – 70 percent of teachers at one school – violated students’ constitutional right to an equal opportunity for an education. The layoffs created turmoil and instability, demoralized the staff and led to a staff shortage filled by substitute
Assembly subcommittee pledges to fight for career technical education - by Michelle Maitre
Raising alarm about the future of programs that help prepare students for jobs after high school, a key Assembly budget subcommittee signaled Tuesday it intends to fight to restore dedicated funding for career technical education ... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit the Edsource Today website for full links, other content, and more! ]]