
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 14, 1991                   TAG: 9102140502
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ON `RIFFING'/ WALDO HAS IT WRONG

ROANOKE teacher representatives may or may not have a justifiable complaint regarding the legal ambiguities surrounding a procedure called "riffing." It's a colloquialism for reductions in force, or employment cutbacks. Let labor lawyers study the matter.

Meantime, though, city residents should be bothered by the insistence of Gary Waldo, executive director of the Roanoke Education Association, that decisions on such job cuts be made solely on the basis of seniority, and that performance evaluations play no role.

The school district's budget next year calls for an astounding $3 million in cuts. "Do not touch our children's education," begged a building manager at Addison Middle School, among many who appeared at a Tuesday night hearing.

Waldo, however, was threatening to sue about riffing - even though retirements are now shrinking the workforce without need for layoffs. Certainly, teachers shouldn't be dismissed without proper and fair procedures.

But to dismiss their quality of work entirely, and say only seniority should be considered when employees have to be let go?

That attitude should offend all teachers trying to raise the status of their profession; it equates them with steel workers and coal miners. If some teachers have to go, let's try to keep the best ones regardless of seniority.

by CNB