Reduction in Force

Most states have statutes directly dealing with the abolition of teaching or other positions without fault on the part of individual employees, commonly referred to as reduction in force (RIF). The grounds for RIF, the order in which employees are released, can “bump” others, and call-back rights are matters of state law subject to modifications by board policies and collective bargaining contracts.

RIFs are most commonly permitted for declines in student enrollment, financial exigencies, elimination of positions or programs, and board discretion. While courts usually defer to board discretion on the good faith needed for RIFs, if challenged, administrators must prove that they carried out justifiable RIFs in accord with state law and their own policies and/or bargaining contracts. In addition, courts expect policies to include descriptions of the criteria that board officials rely on and how they are weighed in implementing RIFs.

Once boards find that RIFs are necessary, they must determine the order of release. Although RIFs are ordinarily based on seniority, seniority rights must be based on statutes or collective bargaining contracts. Even though boards typically bear the burden of proving that a job is no longer necessary, they are not ordinarily required to interchange large numbers of courses between and among existing positions to create positions for teachers who were subjected to RIFs.

In evaluating seniority, absent modifications based on board policy or bargaining contracts, the first criterion is full-time service. Beyond that, board methods must be reasonable and not prohibited by statute. Furthermore, where tenured teachers lose their jobs as part of RIFs, nontenured faculty members typically [Page 855]cannot remain in similar positions, nor may board policies grant them the status of tenured faculty. In other words, incumbents of eliminated positions are entitled to retain jobs for which they are certificated even if jobs are occupied by colleagues with less seniority.

Individuals who lose their jobs in RIFs are responsible to assure board officials that their certifications for other positions are valid when it is time for bumping. Bumping is a term of art that permits employees with more seniority, and the same credentials, to preserve their jobs at the expense of more junior colleagues.

Subject to board policy and collective bargaining contracts, RIF statutes typically provide that the positions of certificated employees who have been released cannot be filled until they have first been offered their jobs back. State law may even specify how many years of seniority they retain on preferred eligibility lists for positions. Under preferred eligibility provisions, employees are usually called back in the order of seniority such that the first to be let go is the first to be called back.