Court Reverses Los Angeles Unified School District Consent Decree That Violates Teachers’ Seniority Rights
A California appellate court recently held that the Los Angeles Unified School District (“LAUSD”) improperly settled a case brought by students, since the “consent decree” settlement between LAUSD and the students potentially violated the seniority rights of LAUSD’s teachers.
The students claimed that teacher lay-offs had disproportionately and adversely impacted their constitutional and statutory rights to equal educational opportunities, and that additional lay-offs would exacerbate this harm. The consent decree included a provision that in the event of layoffs, LAUSD would skip certain targeted schools. However, this provision altered the existing system for lay-offs and ignored the seniority provisions contained in the California Education Code and the collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) between LAUSD and the teachers' union.
The Education Code and CBA generally require that when LAUSD reduces its teaching force for budgetary reasons, lay-offs must be based on seniority. The union members were prejudiced by the consent decree because it would alter this lay-off system by requiring LAUSD to skip certain less senior teachers and layoff more senior teachers.
Since the consent decree harmed the teachers’ seniority rights under California law and the CBA, the teachers’ union was entitled, as a matter of federal due process, to a decision on the merits of the students’ claims, instead of the less-rigorous “fairness hearing” that had been provided, which simply considered whether the consent decree was fair, reasonable and adequate. Since the union did not sign the consent decree, it could not be enforced against the union or any of the teachers.
The appellate court sent the case back to the trial court for a determination of the merits of the union’s objection to the consent decree.
Author: Russell Naymark
