Reductions in Force: Georgia

Analysis of Georgia's policies

In Georgia, the factors used by districts to determine which teachers are laid off during a reduction in force consider a teacher's tenure status and are decided at the district level. Any reductions in staff are made "first in preference of retaining professional certificated personnel on the basis of uniformly applied criteria set forth in local school board policies of the newly created, or surviving, school system."

Citation

Georgia Code 20-2-942 (7) (B)

Recommendations for Georgia

Require that districts consider classroom performance as a factor in determining which teachers are laid off during reductions in force.
Georgia can still leave districts flexibility in determining layoff policies, but it should do so within a framework that ensures that classroom performance is considered.   

Ensure that tenure is not the only factor used to determine which teachers are laid off.
While it is not unreasonable to lay off probationary teachers before those with tenure, doing this without also considering performance is in effect a proxy for seniority-based layoffs and risks sacrificing effective teachers while maintaining low performers. Further, because probationary teachers draw lower salaries, the state may in fact be mandating that districts dismiss a larger number of effective probationary teachers rather than a smaller group of ineffective tenured teachers to achieve the same budget reduction.

State response to our analysis

Georgia recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.