"Minneapolis teachers talked it over and overwhelmingly agreed that realignment was bad for kids and a real pain for lots of teachers and families. The teachers want to extend the agreement reached last year to not apply the Strand provision in Minneapolis (it was erroneously applied in '04 and again in '05, but the egos involved didn't want to admit that it was a bad idea, and it served Jennings' purpose of making the teachers union look bad.)"

 

[Doug Mann] As I noted back in 2004, the district realigned "tenured" teachers to save the jobs of probationary teachers: a violation of the Teacher Tenure Act. See: Teacher Tenure: Top Ten Issues (link to Education MN website)
http://www.educationminnesota.org/index.cfm?PAGE_ID=874

 

Louise Sundin, then the local teachers union president accepted responsibility for the district's decision to realign teachers in 2004. The district administration claimed that the massive teachers realignment was forced on them by the  teachers' union, that it was required by the MN Teacher Tenure Act. Yet, so far as I know, the district reversed its decision to realign teachers in every case where teachers and parents challenged the realignment as a violation of the Teacher Tenure Act or as a violation of the right of special education students to receive an education in a safe environment.

 

[Dan McGuire] "But the district wants to keep the realignment ability in place. I guess they get a kick out of realigning teachers into areas they haven't taught in for 20 or 30 years. Somebody
at 807 must like the chaos it creates. The explanation offered is that it helps stabilize some positions at some schools that most need to be stabilized. Actual data hasn't been produced to support this theory, that I've seen. I don't think the job savings balance out the disruptions of realigning senior teachers into jobs that they haven't practiced for years."

 

[Doug Mann] The district administration realigned teachers on a massive scale in 2004 to save the jobs of probationary and other low-seniority teachers in regular education programs, especially in elementary grades. Enrollment began to consistently decline in a big way in grades K and 1 after the fall of 1997.

 

The realignment of 2004 was done to save money on teacher payroll costs. The district has tried to maintain a large pool of low-seniority teachers. In the spring of 2004 about one-fourth of the tenure-track teachers in regular education programs in traditional K-12 schools were on probationary status, i.e., were employed for less than 3 full years.