I've been with Dallas ISD for 18 years.  I tried to hire on as an emergency certified teacher right before they had a RIF at the beginning of the school year.  I went on to get certified traditionally through Texas Woman's University.  By the way, I'm certified in both CS and Math because I want the job stability of teaching math.  Plus back in the old days, I actually taught a class called Computer Math.  Still have a couple of copies of the textbook.

I think we had another RIF at the beginning of the school year a few years after I hired, but I don't know for sure.

But the main reason I went into teaching was to avoid layoffs. I went through a bunch of RIFs at all three of the corporations I worked at before teaching.  Never fun.

I've been through other fun times -- superintendent who misspent money and went to jail for it.  P-Card scandal.  Contractors stealing from us.  It's been fun.

So the latest?  Last year the district over spent by $64 million dollars and if they don't stop it, the over spending will hit $84 million.

The problem?  They over hired by over 1000 employees.  That's 5% of the district employees.

Here's what I've been told so far:

Our school is two teachers short according to student head count.  So we're in good shape.  Superintendent wants to RIF according to school and department.

However, the "union" wants them to rank the teachers and RIF according to rank.  Meaning that all Algebra I teachers would be ranked, etc.  I probably wouldn't be RIFed, as I would be in the top 3 CS teachers (number two by seniority, not sure how the TAG teacher would be ranked with the two senior general high school teachers, which is why I'm ranking us together).  The good news, is that we still had an opening at the TAG school last I heard. 

TEA is threatening to step in and they haven't said how they would do the RIF.

Frankly, I think someone should be going to jail, this has certainly had more repercussions than buying tacky bedroom furniture did.

And I think if I do get RIFed, I'll go quietly and figure out how to teach CS online -- which I've done before.

The worst part, is that they knew about this problem back in May, and it would have been much less painful for everyone if they had dealt with it then.