Contract Interpretation - Training, Experience, Individual Qualifications & Seniority

In the next week CPS should be issuing final school budgets, which kicks off the process of filling vacancies, considering transfer requests, and finalizing teaching assignments for the next school year.

Some teachers will be “surplussed” from their current schools. Other teachers may be reassigned as staffs are shuffled to fill positions for the coming school year. In addition, there will be opportunities for teachers to look for new positions in the upcoming “transfer rounds”. Some of you will be serving on school interview committees or may be interviewed for new positions. While the District continues to grow and add teachers, projected movement of students from some schools to others may cause reduction in teaching staffs at some or our schools.  

Here are some things you need to know as this process unfolds:

 

1) Our contract is the guide that the district and your principal should be following when reorganizing teaching assignments and filling positions occurs. See Section 220 (Teacher Assignments); and Section 250 (Teacher Transfer Procedures and Surplussing). 

 

2) At some schools there has been talk of reassignments of teachers from one grade level to another. Teachers also may request assignment changes to vacant positions. However, CFT’s position is that a teacher may not be forced to move to a new assignment unless the position is lost due to decreased enrollment or a change in school organization. If a position is lost,  the affected teacher should be given the first opportunity to fill a vacancy in the same school.

 

3) Some teachers will get notices that they are “surplussed” for the coming school year if declining projected enrollment causes a reduction in the staff at their schools. A surplussed teacher still has a right to be employed next year, and should participate in the transfer rounds to get a new position. If you are surplussed and do not find a new position in the transfer rounds, then HR will place you in a vacant position by June 30th. 

 

4) If there are vacancies in a school building for next year, they must be posted by the Principal, with the first opportunity to fill them going to teachers at the school, then to other teachers in the district, before a teacher not currently employed by CPS is interviewed and offered the position.

 

5) When two or more teachers are candidates for a position or assignment, or for being surplussed, our contract requires that their “training, experience and individual qualifications” must be used to make the decision.  If those considerations are equal, then seniority as a CPS employee controls. CFT has prepared a policy for interpreting the “training, experience  and individual qualifications” standards, which is linked below.

 

Feel free to call CFT Field Representatives Karen Imbus or Don Mooney if you have questions in the coming weeks about assignment changes, surplussing or the transfer rounds.