Opinion ID: 500653
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: School Staffing

Text: 100 Educators testified that it is generally desirable for a school to have a balance of experienced and newer teachers on its faculty and for its staff to be relatively stable from year to year. Relatively high rates of turnover and low levels of faculty experience are factors that contribute to a school's lower level of educational effectiveness. The evidence regarding the Yonkers public school system revealed that the predominantly minority schools in Southwest Yonkers had low levels of faculty stability, lower levels of teacher experience than the system-wide average, and produced the students with the lowest academic achievement test scores in the system. These schools also had much higher than average concentrations of minority staff as a result of a Board practice of race-based assignments. 101 The first minority teachers employed by the Yonkers school system, hired between 1946 and 1950, were assigned to School 1, then the only predominantly minority school in the system (91% minority student population in 1950). Until the late 1960's, the system had few minority teachers and no minority principals. The Board then began to recruit minorities, and the number of minority staff members (i.e., teachers, principals, and assistant principals) rose from 95 in 1967 (out of a total of 1416), to 174 by 1975. Consistently over the years, most of the minority staff members were assigned to the schools having the highest percentages of minority students. For example, in the 1967-68 school year, Yonkers had 28 elementary schools; seven of the eight with the highest percentages of minority students were assigned 40% of the minority staff members. In the 1972-73 school year, Yonkers had 30 elementary schools, including six whose student populations were predominantly minority. The Board assigned 61% of its minority staff members to these six schools. In the 1975-76 school year, Yonkers had 31 elementary schools, including nine whose minority student populations ranged from 60% to 98%. These schools enrolled 29% of all elementary students; they were assigned 75% of all elementary level minority teachers. 102 Similar patterns were evident in the middle and high schools. For example, in the 1972-73 school year, Yonkers had seven middle schools; the three that had the highest percentages of minority students had 34% of the City's total middle school enrollment but were assigned 69% of the Board's middle school minority staff members. In 1975-76, the City had eight middle schools; the four having the highest percentages of minority students, though enrolling only 43% of all middle school students, had assigned to them 81% of all middle school minority teachers. 103 The Board followed a similar practice in its assignments of minority principals. For example, at the elementary level in the 1973-74 school year, the City had six minority principals; four were assigned to schools whose minority student populations ranged from 68% to 96%. In the 1974-75 and 1975-76 school years, the City had five minority elementary school principals; in 1975-76 it also had one minority assistant principal; all of these persons were assigned to schools having minority student populations of 66% or higher. 104 While at no time was the faculty of any Yonkers school predominantly staffed by minority teachers, the disproportionate assignment of minority staff to schools having predominantly minority student populations increased the identification of those schools in terms of race. And to the extent that minority teachers were assigned to the virtually all-white schools of East Yonkers it was often to teach the special education classes, which themselves had become known as dumping grounds for minority students. The minority special education teachers were deliberately assigned to such schools because of the disproportionate number of minority students in Special Education classes. 624 F.Supp. at 1465. 105 Not surprisingly, in view of the assignment of a disproportionate number of the more recently hired minority teachers to the predominantly minority schools, the average level of teaching experience at those schools was usually lower than the system-wide average. In the year 1967-68, the system-wide average level of teacher experience was 8.45 years. In the elementary schools having minority student enrollments of 40% or higher, the teacher experience level averages ranged from 5.61 to 7.88 years. The only schools whose teachers averaged more than 10 years in experience were schools having 11% or less minority enrollment, four of which were less than 4% minority. 106 The disparity in teacher experience levels was aggravated in 1969 when the Board entered into a new collective bargaining agreement with the teachers' union. Notwithstanding the already clear trend of concentration of minority teachers in schools having predominantly minority student bodies, the Board agreed that before assigning any teacher hired from outside the school district to any vacant position within the system, teachers already employed within the system would be given the option, in order of their seniority, of transferring to the vacant position. Thus, as positions became available in East Yonkers schools, the most experienced teachers in Southwest Yonkers schools could, and often did, opt to change schools. 107 The effects in terms of minority staff concentration, staff turnover, and teacher experience levels were predictable. For example, School 10 was opened in 1972 as a predominantly minority, physically inferior elementary school in Southwest Yonkers (see Part A.II.E.2. below). Of the original 17 teachers, 15 were white; within two years, 14 had left the school. In the period 1971 to 1975, the total number of minority staff members employed by the City increased from 133 to 174; but in none of the 17 elementary schools having white student populations in excess of 90% did the number of minority teachers increase. Indeed, in 10 of these schools, the number of minority teachers actually declined; and the four schools that had had no minority teachers prior to 1971 still had none. 108 In 1971-72, when the system-wide average teaching experience was 7.15 years, the average levels of experience at six of the seven elementary schools having minority student enrollments of 40% or higher ranged from 3.33 to 6.19 years. In contrast, only two of the 13 elementary schools having white student enrollments of more than 95% had below-average teacher experience levels; four of the 13 had staffs averaging more than 10 years' experience. The disparity in teaching experience levels was, to an extent, decreased in 1976 when, because of the City's fiscal crisis, the Board laid off 250 teachers, a great number of whom were relatively inexperienced. But even by the school year 1979-80, when the system-wide average was 14.2 years, the average levels at the predominantly minority elementary schools ranged from 9.9 to 13.4 years. 109 In the 1969 collective bargaining agreement that gave teachers an option to transfer, on the basis of seniority, to vacant positions elsewhere in the system, the Board had reserved the right to compel a teacher to change schools, in certain enumerated circumstances, when judged to be in the best interest of the school system. The Board never sought to use this provision in order to decrease the concentration of minority teachers in schools with predominantly minority student populations. Indeed, in 1977, the Board agreed to additional limitations on its right to implement involuntary transfers of teachers. 110 As a result of the Board's race-based assignment practices, the eastward flow of the more senior teachers, and the Board's failure to take any steps to halt that flow or to correct the imbalance of its assignments, by 1980 most of the City's minority staff members were concentrated in one-quarter of the system's 36 schools. Of the City's 25 elementary schools, five that had minority student populations of 75-98% were assigned at least half of the system's elementary level minority teachers; no minority teachers whatever were assigned to five other schools, all of whose white-student enrollments exceeded 92%. Of the City's six middle schools, the three in Southwest Yonkers, which had minority student populations ranging from 62-94% and accounted for 42% of the total number of middle school students in the system, had 62% of the system's middle school minority teachers. Of the five high schools, the two that had the highest minority enrollments (47% and 62%) accounted for 46% of all the high school students in the system but had 77% of the system's high school minority teachers. 111