EDUCATION LAW 2588 APPLICABLE TO NYC TEACHER LAYOFFS

A couple of weeks back we wrote a piece on how awful receivership would be for teachers because of changes made in the education law. The State will basically be telling districts to turn over schools deemed failing to receivers. Receivers will have plenty of power but it looks like they will not have authority to lay off NYC teachers.

The receiver will be authorized to set up a personnel committee that has to rehire at least half of the "qualified"staff. Those not rehired cannot bump other teachers so it looks like they will be laid off and have to wait until a job opens up in their district to be employed again. This applies outside of NYC.

NYC Educator put out a detailed New York State United Teacher analysis of the new law.  NYSUT's analysis shows there is a distinct provision of law for New York City teachers and supervisors on layoffs on the books. Layoffs in NYC are covered by Education Law 2588 which mandates layoffs based on who the junior person in a license area is.

The new education law does have language in the receivership section that says notwithstanding any other provision of law so it looks like 2588 survives. My guess is that staff from schools put into receivership in NYC will probably end up as teachers sent to schools on a year to year basis like the new agreement for Boys and Girls and Automotive. They are a kind of Absent Teacher Reserves who do not rotate weekly. This beats layoff for sure.

Outside of NYC, it looks like layoff is the policy if a receiver takes over a school according to the NYSUT analysis. Hopefully some good lawyers will find some loopholes to save these teachers.

Once again I would like to point out that I am a teacher and not a lawyer so this is a layman's interpretation of a complex statute. If anyone can correct us, we will update the posting.