While 33% of districts look primarily at performance when considering layoffs, nearly the same share — 31% — report using seniority, NCTQ found. Some 28% consider multiple criteria, including both seniority and performance.
Though seniority policies remain some districts’ top factor when determining which teachers to lay off, such strategies can disproportionately and negatively impact teachers of color, who are more likely to be early career educators, according to an April 2022 study published in the journal Education Finance & Policy.
