An Illinois Appellate Court says Peoria District 150 didn’t have to re-hire two tenured teachers with unsatisfactory performance evaluations.
The teachers were laid off with 48 others in the annual pink slip process schools used to have a balanced budget to submit to the state. But the District chose not to re-hire the tenured teachers during call-backs. That led to a lawsuit against the school board.
The teachers say failure to recall them violated tenure laws. But in 2011, a new state law allowed District 150 to use teacher performance evaluations to determine who would get laid off. The law also determined school districts didn’t have to automatically recall tenured teachers during the re-hiring process.
An appellate court upheld a Peoria County Circuit Court decision that District 150 was within its rights to not re-hire the tenured teachers.
The Illinois Federation of Teachers is exploring whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court.