LIFO surprise: With contentious ‘last in, first out’ suddenly gone from statute, where are teacher layoff policies headed?

Jun 08, 2017

MinnPost, Erin Hinrichs

While debates over teacher licensure reforms, school funding and failed pseudo voucher bills dominated the education agenda at the Capitol this year, a pretty significant policy measure passed without much commotion: the “last in, first out” layoff policy, commonly known as LIFO, is no longer written into state statute as the default for districts and union leaders who can’t reach an agreement during negotiations on how layoffs should otherwise be handled.

The LIFO policy is pretty self-explanatory. “Literally, the last person hired is the first person to go, regardless of their effectiveness in working with students,” explains Gary Amoroso, executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators.

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