School code changes affect teacher layoffs

Tucked into a piece of budget legislation outlining how Pennsylvania education money is to be spent is a controversial new measure that would allow school districts to furlough staff for economic reasons.

If necessary, school districts could lay off teachers based on how they performed on annual teacher evaluations. Performance also would be used to determine the order in which teachers are reinstated.

The Senate approved the changes to the school code on Thursday. The House must also approve the legislation before it becomes law.

The general appropriations bill is the state’s main spending-plan. The code bills provide additional instructions for how the money shouldbe allocated.

Teachers unions across the state have protested the change to the school code and said they will continue to press lawmakers in the House to remove it. Nina Esposito-Visgitis, president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, called theprovision “horrifying .”

“Thousands of educators across the Commonwealth have been furloughed since 2011 with no need for ‘economic reasons’ to be included in the school code,” she said in a statement. “We should be talking about how to fully fund our schools, not how to lay off educators. If school districts must furlough educators, seniority is the only fair and impartial way to decide which educators will be furloughed and reinstated.”

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, said he wasn’t fond of the proposal, he said, but it was among several other changes lawmakers of both parties had to compromise on in order to pass a balanced budget and plan.

“There’s a whole bunch of other stuff in there that’s positive,” he said about the school code.

Other changes to the school code include required training for newly elected school board members and newly appointed charter school trustees; prohibiting “lunch shaming,” and requiring that schools provide a meal to students regardless of whether that student-owes money.