Justifiable Decrease in Teaching Positions

This Administrative Guideline replaces and supersedes all previous guidelines and past practices in relation to Reduction in Force. 

Prior to commencing action to non-continue or cancel teachers' contracts under the Reduction in Force Policy, the Board of Education will attempt to make needed adjustments through: 

1. Voluntary retirement 
2. Voluntary resignations 
3. Voluntary transfer of existing staff 
4. Involuntary transfer of existing staff 

The non-continuance or cancellation of a teacher’s contract due to a justifiable decrease in the number of teaching positions shall be determined on the basis of performance. The Superintendent is authorized to limit or narrow the scope of any reduction in force to those employees who work in the school, facility, program, or department subject to the reduction in positions. 

The following procedure will first be applied only to probationary and professional teachers in the school, facility, program, or department (“area”) to be reduced when the area to be reduced has both established teachers and probationary and/or professional teachers assigned to it. If the area being reduced has only established teachers assigned to it, or if all probationary and professional teachers in the area are already subject to reduction and more reductions are needed, the procedure will then be applied to established teachers in the area to be reduced. An established teacher who is licensed in another content area cannot be subject to the reduction in force if the established teacher is able to replace a probationary or professional teacher in that license area.  

Teacher performance will be considered over a time frame of the past three consecutive years. If three years of evaluative data is not available, two years or one year of data will be used. 

In the spring, when notices on possible staff reductions must be made, only partial evaluation data for the current school year may be available to use to make these decisions. Since the teacher evaluation rubric (TER) gives the most accurate assessment of a teacher’s performance when reduction-in-force decisions have to be made, it will be utilized as a representation of current school year performance. Employees on leave or who for other reasons have not yet received an evaluation will be deemed effective (3.0) unless objective performance data exists indicating that an effective rating would be unlikely were a full evaluation completed.  

School officials will use the teacher effectiveness rubric scores to place teachers in one of the four performance categories (ineffective, needs improvement, effective, or highly effective) and then, if necessary, will make further differentiation using the individual teacher evaluation scores in order to determine who is a lower-performing teacher and/or whether the tie-breaker factors identified in this guideline will need to be considered. 

All evaluation information and data used in determining whether or not a teacher is reduced will be the information and data collected while a teacher at School Corporation. 

In cases where the teachers’ performance ratings/scores are the same, the administrator will weigh the following factors before making a determination as to which teacher and/or teachers shall be subject to the non-continuance or cancellation, in the following order: 

1. the academic needs of the students in the school corporation  
2. current assigned instructional leadership roles  
3. additional content area degrees earned beyond the requirements for employment
4. additional credit hours earned beyond the requirements for employment
5. teaching experience  

I.C. 20-28-6-7.5  

I.C. 20-28-6-8  

I.C. 20-28-7.5-1(d) 

I.C. 20-28-7.5-2(a)(2) 

I.C. 20-28-7.5-2(a)(3) 

I.C. 20-28-9-1.5(b)

West Lafayette Community School Corporation

Date: February 5, 2026 

Revised: [date]