House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

House of Representatives
Session of 2021 - 2022 Regular Session

In 2007, the Duquesne City School District in Allegheny County was forced to close its high school program and transfer students from Duquesne High School to a couple of neighboring school districts. More recently, Wilkinsburg High School shut down, and students were transferred to Pittsburgh Public Schools. Unfortunately, when situations like these arise, there is no statutory language to protect the employees who are impacted by these closures. That is why I am re-introducing legislation that would protect professional school employees and education support professionals in the event that students are transferred from one district to another as a result of a school closure or program curtailment. Under my bill, the employees that served these students would transfer with the students if the receiving district needed additional staff. (There is no requirement to hire new staff.) The receiving school district would select employees in order of seniority to provide services in the receiving school district. This has often been referred to as “transfer between entities.” My bill would apply to situations like this that might arise in the future and would provide “transfer between entities” protection to school employees. There was bipartisan support for the effort as it related to Duquesne in 2007. Please join me in helping to protect school employees in the event of school closures that involve the transfer of students to other school districts.
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Introduced as HB99