Know Your Rights! Excessing

What is excessing?

“Excessing” is a type of involuntary transfer to achieve a reduction of staff due to declining enrollment or loss of funding at the site or in a program.  It is also used in the event a site’s SGT changes its instructional program and there is a need for certain types of credentials, such as converting to a bilingual or dual immersion program, which may result in losing employees who do not have the proper credentials.  Central office staff are usually excessed due to funding cuts or program closures.  The term in the union contract is “transfer to reduce staff,” and “involuntary transfer.”  

Being excessed is not the same as being laid off.  A member who is transferred to reduce staff (“excessed”) will still have a job in SDUSD in the subsequent school year, but the location of the job will change. On the other hand, a layoff notice means that the member might not have a job in SDUSD in the next school year.  

Note that these rules below are somewhat different for itinerant staff (School Psychs, SLP’s, Nurses, some VAPA teachers, some Specialized Service Providers in SpEd, and most central office staff) and for multiple assignment staff (some School Counselors, Prep Time and Enrichment teachers, some SpEd staff), who operate under different sections of the contract when it comes to excessing and future assignments (see Sections 12.12, 12.13, and 12.14).  For the vast majority of site-based staff, however, these rules apply.  

The window for excessing only opens twice a year, although SDEA and SDUSD’s bargaining teams are working to end the practice of Fall excessing right now.  Transfers to reduce staff (“excessing”) can only happen at the end of one school year for the next school year, with written notification from HR required to excessed staff three days prior to the start of the spring Post & Bid.  This notification explains excessed employee rights and the post and bid procedure, and usually comes a month prior to post and bid going live.  This process usually begins with Site-Based Budgets (SBB’s) in January, and excessed staff are usually notified verbally via their direct superior that they will be excessed, by February.  Currently, excessing can also happen after the early fall student enrollment count, but no later than October 31; but this process may change pending the outcome of current negotiations.

Excessing is based on seniority.

Instead of allowing the supervisor to play favorites, the union contract establishes rules about who is to be transferred should there be a need to involuntarily transfer staff (“excess”). This is accomplished by looking at district seniority of the employees in the subject area or program that needs a staff reduction and administration selecting the one with the lowest district seniority (there is no such thing as a “site seniority”).  In the event that there is a tie in seniority dates, the contract does not address what is to be done.  In these very rare cases, the person selected for excess is accomplished via lot (coin toss, draw straws, etc.).

Indispensable Services

There is a small exception to the seniority process established in the contract, where less senior employees who are in one of the “indispensable services” categories may be retained, while a more senior employee gets excessed.  This is most commonly used to retain less senior employees who hold a special credential that no one else on site holds, that is necessary for the instructional program (bilingual credentials are the most common), or those employees with an extended day assignment at a high school (such as ASB advisor or a coaching assignment).  

SDEA has lost an arbitration trying to argue that members in extended day assignments could or should get excessed in seniority order, if there are volunteers, or others more senior at the site, willing to take the extended day assignment, including the more senior employee slated to be excessed.  Unfortunately, the arbitrator did not see it that way.  They ruled that if one holds an extended day assignment, the administration can choose to skip them for excessing and excess the next most senior employee in the subject area or program at the site.  Currently, there is no ability to make the grievance argument that in order to prevent a more senior employee from being excessed, when a less senior one is retained due to an extended day assignment, the more senior employee could or should be given the assignment. 

Steps in the Excessing Process

Here are the steps that need to be followed when administration needs to excess staff.  The supervisor determines, based on enrollment (or funding cuts in central office programs), the subject area or program at the site to be reduced.  As of Spring 2023, elementary sites no longer reduce staff based on grade “levels” (TK – 3 or 4 – 6), but across the entire site, based on seniority.  For elementary sites, the “program” is the UTK – 6^th grade, so excessing is done in seniority order from among the entire staff at the site.  The supervisor must ask for volunteers to achieve the desired reduction in staff.  If there is no volunteer, the member with the least seniority at the site in the subject area, or in the affected program is to be transferred (“excessed”).  

In some cases, the member to be transferred may be able to exercise seniority rights to stay at the site. To exercise seniority rights, the member must meet two requirements:   

1. The employee slated for excess must be more senior than another member who works in a different subject area or program at the site in which they wish to exercise seniority rights.
2. The employee slated for excess must have recent experience in that subject area or program at the site.  This means they have taught in SDUSD in that different subject area or program for at least one school year in the last five, or two school years in the last nine.

Only the member who is slated for excess can decide if they want to exercise these seniority rights to stay, if they are eligible. The supervisor can’t exercise seniority rights for them.

Post & Bid

Once a person is slated for excess, they then have to participate in the post and bid process in late April or early May to secure a position for next year, or they are placed by HR if they do not.  In some cases, someone quits or retires from a school site where someone was excessed, or transfers to another site or assignment, prior to the post and bid going live.  In these cases, the need for excessing may be resolved via attrition, meaning the person who was excessed is placed back at the site by HR due to a position being vacated that they have a credential for by another employee leaving.  

On the post and bid, excessed employees have special rights to positions, have a secondary staffing process if they do not secure a position via the post and bid, and have a guarantee that HR will place them into a position they are qualified and credentialed for if they do not get a position via either of these two processes, or do not participate in them.  

Priority Consideration

Anyone who is excessed gets a status known as “priority consideration” on the post and bid.  This means that at school sites where seniority and priority consideration are factors used to route applicants to those sites for interviews and consideration for their vacancies, excessed staff with priority are guaranteed an interview.  At most school sites, this means that the top six most senior applicants with priority (excessed staff), and the top six most senior applicants without priority (voluntary bidders) are routed to school sites for selection.  Applicants with priority are guaranteed an interview.  Sites then must choose their preferred applicant from this group of 12 routed applicants.  If the site does not pick one, then HR assigns the most senior applicant to the site.  Magnet schools, “low performing” schools (based on the CA Dashboard status of the site, as determined by the joint SDEA/SDUSD Contract Administration Committee), and schools with high teacher turnover and high numbers of probationary status teachers, are exempt from using seniority or priority consideration status as factors in selecting who they want to staff their vacancies.  They pick their preferred candidate from the list of all eligible applicants that are routed to them by HR.  Employees picked by a site are notified in writing if they have been accepted by a school site, and they have 48 hours, or other mutually agreed upon time frame, to accept or deny the position.  

After Post & Bid

If an excessed employee is not picked up by a site via the post and bid, there is a staffing process, limited to excessed employees only, after the post and bid.  In essence, HR sends a list of all remaining and new vacancies available after the post and bid, via email, to all remaining excessed employees.  Those excessed employees then rank their preferences electronically (usually done via Google Forms).  Then, after the ranking is done, HR assigns positions in seniority order.  Those who still do not secure a position via this process, are then assigned by HR, although this is extremely rare.  Once an assignment is made via either of these processes, employees do not have the option to reject it.  

In fall, if an excessed employee’s former site has a vacancy that was created, either through attrition or enrollment growth, the excessed employee can request to return to their former site.  It is not a guarantee that the excessed employee gets to return, however.  In order for HR to facilitate this, their internal process requires the administrator at the new school site and the administrator at the old site agreeing to release and accept the excessed employee, and then HR moves them.  

What should we do if our rights aren’t respected?

Talk with the AR (Association Representative) at your worksite, and read the applicable contract sections (all found in Article 12).  Our union contract has a process for enforcing our rights — the grievance procedure (see Section 12.15 and Article 15).  The next step you and your AR might take is an informal grievance meeting with the supervisor to address the violation and give them a chance to correct their mistake.