Legal Clips, [October 2007]Mayor Adrian Fenty of Washington, D.C. is calling on the D.C. Council to amend city personnel rules to give D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) Chancellor Michelle Rhee the power to fire hundreds of employees in a planned restructuring of the system's central administration. The mayor has distributed a bill to council members that proposes to reclassify nonunion employees in the central office as "at-will" workers who serve at the discretion of the chancellor, meaning they could be terminated for non-disciplinary reasons. The legislation does not specify how many employees would be reclassified. However, it is believed that 754 of the central office's 934 positions would be placed in the "at-will" designation. The 180 central office employees who belong to unions would not be affected. Ms. Rhee claims she could eliminate as many as 200 central office positions during the next several months. Some of those positions are vacant, so it is not clear how many people she would terminate in her restructuring. According to government sources, the legislation is designed to give her flexibility. The chancellor's pledge to restructure the central administration, long considered a dysfunctional bureaucracy that fails to support the city's 140 schools, has been a cornerstone of her reform efforts. Ms. Rhee has said that the central office has failed in a number of critical tasks, including getting paychecks to employees on time, delivering books and supplies to schools and responding promptly to parents. Under the legislation, central office employees who object to being reclassified in the "at-will" category could opt instead to receive a financial severance package and leave the school system. Although terminating employees could prove to be a thorny political issue for council members whose constituents might be affected, the mayor’s office believes the effects will be mitigated because only 336 central office workers live in the District.
Washington Post By David Nakamura
[Editor’s Note: According to the Washington Post report below, union leaders say they will examine the bill carefully, although it would largely affect nonunion workers. Chancellor Rhee reportedly has started negotiations with the Washington Teachers' Union and is looking to "reward and recognize" high-performing teachers but "to remove ineffective teachers from their positions." George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers' Union, is quoted as saying the system has a 90-day process for getting rid of underperforming teachers, one of the shortest in the nation. D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray plans to schedule a public hearing as soon as possible on the legislation and says he wants a personnel consultant to conduct an independent analysis of the bill. Background on the proposal is at the second link below.]
Washington Post By Theola Labbé, with Nikita Stewart
NSBA School Law pages on D.C. chancellor’s plan to terminate employees