8/2/2019 Seniority Letter to Teachers

1/2

The Seniority Saga

Managing the seniority lists has been a full time

job this year. In addition to responding to

hundreds of emails and phone calls and generating

the first round of seniority list reports in

December, weve poured through every state law

book, legal decision, memo released from school board attorneys to their clients, and NYSUT

guideline, to ensure that we had a clear

understanding of what our members were entitled

to. Without this understanding, we would have

been unable to even advocate for our members.

The process has been rigorous and imperfect, and

Im as frustrated with that as anyone. While Ive

made it a point to respond to questions as quickly

as possible, and to visit any schools that seemed

collectively concerned, I feel that its important

that I reach out to everyone here to explain more

about what has been going on.

Errors in handling

First, let me be completely honest. Although

weve worked hard to be diplomatic and

collaborative in this process, we can not deny that

the district clearly did nothave a good handle on

these seniority lists. While that may have been

acceptable five years ago, with demographer projections extending years ahead, these lists

should have been ready before this year. Despite

that, as youve already seen, there were chronic

computational errors in the calculations that went

out in December. What is far worse than that,

however, is that the district was completely

unfamiliar with many of the laws that govern

seniority, several of which, once confirmed and

applied to our calculations, have had massive

effects on the lists.

By now, most of you are familiar with some of

these more systemic mishandlings:

Teachers were misinformed about theimplications of taking extended leaves.

Teachers were misinformed about theimplications of switching tenure areas.

The District was handling the accrual ofseniority for teachers split across multiple

tenure areas incorrectly.

Many leave replacements were not added toseniority.

Many extended leaves were not subtractedfrom seniority.

The District believed that leave replacementshad to be contiguous to a probationary

appointment to earn credit.

Teachers who worked as co-teachers at theelementary level were not given credit for

their service.

While some of these laws are really esoteric,

requiring substantial research to arrive at

conclusions, many of them are not. The NYS

School Law book on all of our shelves is written

in Q&A format, with a Seniority Rights section of

only 7 pages. The enrollment decline has been a

topic of discussion at District Office for years. I

do not see why some of these issues werent

addressed years ago.

Throughout this process, there are people who

have been supportive and responsive, and others

who have sought to deflect blame for the situation

onto the Union. The simple truth is that were it not

for the diligence of the Union and a few people at

District office, the lists would be a far bigger mess

than they are today, and the life-and-deathdecisions that hinge on the accuracy of them

would all be made in error.

Addressing the errors

Unfortunately, there is very little legal authority

that may be invoked in addressing errors in

seniority lists. Seniority lists cannot be grieved

because they are not contractual. We cannot file

an injunction against layoffs, on the grounds that

the lists appear inaccurate. The only authority to

which one may appeal regarding seniority list

errors is the Commissioner of the State Education

Department, and that would only be in the event

that a teacher appealed a layoff as being improper.

Our vehicle for addressing errors, as imperfect as

it may be, has been to exercise great care and

scrutiny in looking at the law and answering

8/2/2019 Seniority Letter to Teachers

2/2

peoples questions. When a member brings a

procedural question about seniority accrual to our

attention, we basically move through the

following steps:

1. Research the question in NYS Education Law books, prior legal decisions, etc. We also

check with NYSUT on the question.2. Should that research reveal something we

believe is notaccounted for in the calculation

of seniority within the District, we bring it to

the attention of Central Office.

3. If we agree in our interpretations, we thenhave to go back through individual records to

apply the new information to the calculations.

4. If we dont agree in our interpretations, wepass the higher level questions up to NYSUT

legal and the Districts legal counsel.

5. After those parties reach a conclusion, again,we then have to apply the outcome of their

decision to the calculations.

Moving through these 3-5 steps, we experience

dead zones characterized by a feeling that things

may change dramatically any second, but with an

uncertainty that warrants discretion in even

releasing any information to the general

membership. As a basic rule of thumb, we share

what we know, not what we think. We do this in

an attempt to avoid inducing any unnecessary

panic or misleading people in any way, though Irecognize how it may appearsecretive to people

who are anxiously awaiting answers to their

questions.

Throughout this whole process, the Union has

aimed to be accurate, honest and impartial. The

sad reality of this process, as many of you already

know, is that adding credit to one teacher

adversely affects another. When questions are

brought to our attention, we simply seek answers.

Moving forward

What Ive come to share with many people

recently is the clear reality that our two greatest

priorities in the handling of seniority lists are

completely opposing forces: (1) We want

information to be 100 percent accurate; and (2)

We want that information immediately. In reality,

the longer we wait to answer questions or release

information, the greater the chances of accuracy.

We seek to balance these conflicting priorities and

act as soon as the Districts work is reasonably

verified, but because of the interrelatedness of

these lists, there is always a chance that new

information will lead to change. Even if, for

example, the District was confident with the credityou were given, if ten people with less seniority

were owed seniority, you could still fall ten spots

once that is factored in.

Its important that teachers understand how

intensely weve been working on ensuring that

this is done as quickly and as accurately as

possible. In the last couple of months, the District

has begun to take the importance of accuracy far

more seriously than I believe they had in previous

years. Our contract only requires the District to

provide notice by June 1st, so teachers who are

low in seniority should not be lulled into a false

sense of security. No one wants things to keep

changing, but there is no law preventing them

from doing so, and to the contrary, both the Union

and the District are very much compelled by law

and impelled by the pursuit of fairness to change

what needs to be changed when it is discovered.

In the next few days, we will release some more

information and guidance that will help each of

you understand the process for calculating yourown seniority. Our goal is for us, as a union, to be

more proactive than reactive. We hope that one

day in the near future we will see lists that are

100% accurate and have the confidence in them it

takes to turn the roller coaster ride this year has

been into something we can predict and plan for

ahead of time. Until then, we promise to be ever

vigilant.

In service and sincerity,

Richard