Hollister School District teachers and administrators returned
from spring break Tuesday not to the classroom, but to an
administrative hearing to determine if the teachers will keep their
jobs.
Hollister School District teachers and administrators returned from spring break Tuesday not to the classroom, but to an administrative hearing to determine if the teachers will keep their jobs.
The hearings are requested by teachers to determine if there is a case for not reemploying them in response to layoff notices delivered March 15. Final layoff notices will be given May 15.
Dozens of teachers and administrators fill the room at such hearings to watch lawyers and an administrative law judge reason which teachers could be laid off and why. Those involved are participating in teacher hearings set forth in the California Education Code.
The hearings are presided over by an administrative law judge from the state Office of Administrative Hearings with lawyers representing the teachers and the school district. All 29 teachers in the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District given notices requested a hearing that took place April 17, and 37 HSD teachers attended that district’s hearing Tuesday.
Seven teachers in the ASJUSD and two in the HSD had their layoff notices rescinded at the hearings, according to Barbara Brown, ASJUSD teachers union representative, and Joseph Cisneros, attorney for the Hollister Elementary School Teachers Association.
The judges have until May 7 to render their decisions about the notices. The decisions are not binding, but can be appealed to the county Superior Court, Cisneros said. The point of the hearings is to get the districts to rescind as many notices of layoff as possible, he said.
Each district paid for the hearings and the substitute teachers needed to fill in for teachers attending the hearings.
The main point of contention for teachers at the hearings is that their district does not have the correct first date of paid service on record. For some teachers, their first date of hire was after they had worked with the district on emergency credentials or as a substitute, which in some cases can be a difference of two or three years. For seniority list purposes, the first day a teacher was paid for service is their first date of hire.
Districts circulated seniority lists in January and February asking teachers to make sure the information was correct, but some information did not get updated for various reasons.
Some teachers were skipped along seniority lists from getting notices because they taught areas high in demand but low in supply – particularly special education and bilingual education. Some teachers who are not bilingual feel they have no chance to keep their jobs.
“I know a lot of teachers are concerned,” Brown said. “A lot of them feel that if they’re not bilingual, they’re not going to have a job. I don’t know what to tell them.”
But when considering whether to keep bilingual teachers, the districts did not take into account how many teachers were bilingual, only those who had a bilingual credential.
At the hearings, teachers and their lawyers challenged criteria used to determine teacher competency and to break ties of the first date of paid service on the seniority lists. At the ASJUSD hearing, the district decided not to use competency criteria it developed. The judge at this hearing noted that the tiebreaker language was subjective, but that the union and district acted in good faith, according to Brown.
The HSD used a list of 12 criteria for breaking ties for teachers with the same date of first paid service. The criteria included national board certifications, full credentials and credentials in specific areas. When necessary, the HSD also used a lottery system, Bill Jordan, director of human resources, testified at the hearing.
Some teachers also feel that their teaching experience outside their districts should be taken into account even though they are at the bottom of the seniority list. The ASJUSD stipulated that it will count all years of service, both private and public, according to Brown.
Both administrative law judges for the HSD and ASJUSD hearings were from San Diego. The Office of Administrative Hearings is out of Oakland, Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego, but Oakland is busy with hearings, so judges from San Diego are being flown up to the area, Cisneros said.
The San Benito High School District delivered two notices of layoffs March 15, but no requests for hearings were made. Both teachers have found other jobs within the district because of attrition, said Evelyn Muro, the district’s director of personnel.
“We were very fortunate, as well as the teachers,” Muro said about not needing to give notice to more teachers in March.
