When “do no harm” is impossible, how can districts design teacher layoffs to do the least damage?

At the close of last school year, NCTQ and others warned that as pandemic relief funds expire, school districts that had bulked up their school staff may soon face budget shortfalls and staffing cuts. News stories from across the country suggest that some districts (in California, Illinois, and Oregon, for example) have already sent pink slips to teachers and other essential staff members.

These layoffs come with a high price, beyond the harm to the teachers losing their jobs. They’re bad for teacher morale, which in turn hurts student learning.¹ And layoffs can disproportionately remove teachers from harder-to-staff schools (which tend to have more novice teachers) and can work against districts’ recent strides in diversifying their workforce.²

When district staff have to lay off teachers, their policies about which teachers to let go first determine which students and schools bear the brunt of the disruption. In this District Trendline, we analyze the layoff policies of 148 districts³ across the country, highlighting policies that minimize the harm layoffs pose to student learning and teacher diversity.

While there’s been progress over the years, the sobering finding is that many districts still prioritize teachers’ seniority over their performance, and districts with the greatest share of students from low-income backgrounds are far more likely to let effective teachers go to save more experienced ones.

Criteria for who gets laid off

While districts can consider a range of criteria to determine which teachers to lay off first, most districts use teachers’ performance or evaluation ratings or their seniority (years of experience with the district). In fact, a third of large districts (52) consider some combination of performance and seniority, typically alongside other criteria.⁴

More than a quarter of districts (29%) use performance as the sole (3%) or primary (26%) criterion in layoff decisions, nearly matched by the 28% of districts that use seniority as the sole (20%) or primary (8%) criterion.

The emphasis on seniority in layoffs comes with a great cost to students. Ignoring or downplaying teachers’ performance in layoff decisions means that students may lose some highly effective but newer teachers. Moreover, focusing on seniority means that districts that have recently hired a more racially diverse corps of teachers will let go of many teachers of color. This is problematic because all students, especially students of color, benefit from learning from teachers of color.⁵

Figure 1.

The good news is that in the years NCTQ has tracked district policies, we have seen districts shift away from using seniority and toward using performance to determine which teachers to let go first. In the 76 districts that we analyzed in both 2011 and 2024,⁶ almost three times as many now use performance as the sole or primary criterion than in 2011, while only a third as many prioritize seniority.

Figure 2.

Seniority-based layoff policies hit disadvantaged schools hardest

Schools serving more students living in poverty and more students of color tend to have a higher share of novice teachers.⁷ This means that when districts consider teachers across the entire district when determining seniority—rather than looking at seniority within each school—the schools serving more students of color and students living in poverty will lose a higher share of teachers, creating greater instability within those schools.

It is concerning, then, that four out of every five districts that consider seniority in layoff decisions measure seniority at the district level rather than the school level. Most of the remainder do not set clear policies or do not address this issue. One rare exception is Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (NC), which states that the superintendent can determine whether layoffs happen “on a system-wide, department, program, service or school basis, or otherwise.” Districts could reduce the harm, especially to already disadvantaged schools, by considering teachers’ seniority at the school level rather than the district level and laying off a comparable share of teachers across all schools, or even giving greater job protections to teachers at harder-to-staff schools, so long as the teachers meet performance expectations.

This inequity in how layoffs affect schools is especially concerning because, among the large districts in our sample, the districts with the greatest share of students qualifying for free and reduced price lunch (FRL) are also more likely to base layoff decisions on seniority rather than performance.

Figure 3.

Districts may use tenure as a proxy for seniority

Another way that districts may privilege teachers with more experience in layoff decisions is to prioritize laying off non-tenured teachers before those with tenure. In our sample, 62 districts (42%) lay off non-tenured teachers before tenured teachers, using tenure status as a proxy for seniority.

How much notice do districts give teachers?

Districts have to balance competing priorities when deciding when to hand out pink slips. For teachers, it’s helpful to know sooner rather than later if they’ll be laid off, since that gives them more time to update their resume and apply for other positions. However, teachers’ advance notice may come with a cost for students: Once teachers get a pink slip, their effectiveness tends to decline (even if they’re later rehired and teach the following year).⁸

Two-thirds of districts did not address the timing of layoff notices in the documents NCTQ reviewed (likely allowing those districts to maintain flexibility). Among those that do set firm deadlines, timing varies widely, ranging from only 10 workdays’ notice in Albuquerque Public Schools (NM) to as many as 60 days’ notice in Alpine School District (UT) and Portland Public Schools (OR).

Recommendations

When layoffs become necessary, any approach will disrupt teachers and schools—and their students. However, as districts and states seek to close achievement gaps and increase equity in education, they can make decisions to lessen the harm to schools and students who are already facing greater disadvantages:

• To the extent allowable within state laws, prioritize teachers’ performance over other factors such as seniority.
• Determine whether layoff policies will disproportionately harm some students or schools and design policies to reduce that harm (e.g., by determining seniority at the school rather than district level or offering protection to effective teachers at harder-to-staff schools).
• Review layoff policies to determine what the current criteria are. In seven districts in this sample, layoff criteria have not been updated in more than 20 years (and in six of these, seniority is the primary or sole criterion).
• Examine whether layoff policies will shift the demographic composition of the workforce; for example, reducing the number of teachers of color. Use this information to determine which layoff criteria contribute to that shift and consider whether these criteria should change.
• Revisit the timing of notifying teachers of layoffs and consider whether the timing may inadvertently harm student outcomes.

More than anything else at school, teachers matter for students. Approaching teacher layoffs with teacher impact and school and district needs in mind can dull the pain and protect more of the most vulnerable students.