Setting the stage for future legal battles, a state appeals court Friday nullified a settlement that allowed the Los Angeles Unified School District to shield certain schools from teacher layoffs during budget crises.
The decision by the California 2nd District Court of Appeal voided a settlement in Reed vs. L.A. Unified that allowed the district to bypass seniority-based layoffs at 45 schools. Those campuses, the district argued, would be heavily affected because many of their faculty members have taught for relatively fewer years and thus accrued little seniority.
Citing state law, school districts typically dismiss teachers who have less seniority during budgetary shortfalls.
The lawsuit, filed in 2010 on behalf of students at three of the city’s worst-performing middle schools, Samuel Gompers, Edwin Markham and John H. Liechty, claimed that those students were denied their legal right to an education and aimed to prevent L.A. Unified from laying off more teachers there.