The Park City School District is reviewing its Orderly Termination Policy in order to comply with Sen. Stephenson’s legislation and the 2011 Utah code regarding the Last In, First Out policy which passed last session. .

According to School Board member Lisa Kirchenheiter, the changes could have a big effect on individual employees and she emphasized that it’s not the school board making the changes. The biggest change for the school district is replacing item 7.C in the Reduction in Force section of the District’s Orderly Termination policy. The current policy states:

“If a choice must be made between two or more employees determined by the site and district administration to be equally qualified for an available position, the employee with the greatest seniority in the district shall be retained. If the district seniority is the same, the original hire date shall be used as the second determiner.”

The new policy prohibits school districts from utilizing a last-hired, first-fired layoff policy when terminating school district employees, according to the 2011 Utah State Code.

One of the last things considered when evaluating employees in the school district was a teacher’s seniority, according to Kirchenheiter, who said the new policy eliminates that consideration entirely.

The PCSD Teacher Evaluation Committee will reflect on these policy changes as they develop recommendations for a new teacher evaluation process.

“This way we will be able to determine who will be a higher quality teacher. The committee will have in mind the new implications as they come up with the evaluation process and that it could also be used for termination,” Kirchenheiter said.

According to Park City School District Superintendent Ray Timothy, the school district will work with its employees to make sure that there are clearly defined steps in the Orderly Termination policy.

The Utah State Board of Education is working with Sen. Osmond in anticipation of the 2012 session, according to Kirchenheiter, who said her assumption is that the USOE is trying to work with the legislature on education issues rather than react to legislative action, along with being aware of the issues surrounding teacher tenure.

Sen. Osmond proposed that Orderly Termination laws be removed from 2011 State code and that school districts establish their own hire, fire and evaluation employee management policies.

According to Park City Education Association President Heidi Matthews, the change in policy would require the school district to eliminate the word “seniority” from its policy.

“What they are going to do is make it so that no one wants to become a teacher, and certainly not in Utah,” Matthews said. “It’s a back door way in being able to not have to follow a due process.”

According to Matthews, seniority shows dedication to a school district and should be one factor in the decision process of orderly termination.

“Those are the conversations we’re having in the school board policy meetings,” Matthews said. “We’re just going to keep having that voice of reason heard and call attention to it, but they are going to do what they are going to do.”

Editor’s note: This article represents a corrected version of one that was previously released.