Hold it! Music Layoff are on Hold till July

 A message from Paul

Hi,

I got the following email this morning from HR confirming that the district will
not be bringing the proposed layoffs of tenured teachers to the board tomorrow
night. This delay is the result of a concern the union has raised about the
legality of laying off tenured teachers (in areas such as music) when there are
as many as 40 probationary teachers holding various TOSA positions that require
a teaching license but not a license in any particular area. It is the union's
position that tenured teachers have rights to those TOSA positions and may not
be laid off.

The district has said that it intends to "study" this issue over the next month
and could choose to bring the proposed layoffs to the board at its 7/20 meeting.

Those of you who had been expecting official layoff notices should be getting
contacted by Julie Coffey over the next several days to explain that those
notices will be delayed. It is our hope that they never come at all. However, if
the district does send notices out in July, we would encourage any impacted
tenured teachers to request a hearing to challenge your layoff. The union will
provide legal representation to members at that hearing at no charge. That would
be the venue for us to formally make this argument about the legality of the
layoffs.

One unintended consequence of this delay is that teachers who thought they would
be receiving formal layoff notices should hold off on filing for unemployment
for now. You still have a "reasonable expectation" of reemployment in the fall
unless and until we learn otherwise from the district in July.

Please call if you have any questions about this. Also, please come to this
afternoon's meeting with Jan Spencer (4:15 today at the SPFT office) so we can
raise some of our concerns about the proposal to move elementary instrumental
music into ALC.

-Paul

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Forwarded Message: Paul - Just an FYI that we are not taking layoffs to the BOE on 6/15 for approval until we can get better clarification on the TOSA issue. We'll plan to take - probably in July. I need to notify teachers that are affected and will do so in the next day or two.
J.C.

As mentioned in the previous post about the Monday Meeting we do not know what happens if these lay offs are canceled.
Will the music positions also be reinstated?
Or will these teachers will become TOSA's themselves?