Sen. Pam Wolf, Author of Bill to Change Teacher Layoffs, Is Laid Off as Teacher

State Sen. Pam Wolf is out of her other job as a teacher at Pines School in Lino Lakes, according to the Star Tribune, along with 28 other teachers laid off as the school moves from Anoka County control to join the Centennial School District.

SEE UPDATE: Wolf calls layoff "cruel irony" after her effort to reform how teachers are laid off in Minnesota.

Wolf has represented part of Fridley in the Minnesota Senate since January 2011, when as a new Republican senator in the District 51 seat formerly held by DFLer .

Now Wolf has been laid off from her position teaching social studies and physical education at the school located within the Lino Lakes juvenile detention center, the Star Tribune reported Tuesday. 

What the newspaper didn't mention is Wolf's job at the Legislature, and that she was Senate author of a bill to change how teachers get laid off in Minnesota.

Wolf's bill would have banned school districts from using a "last-in, first-out" (or LIFO) policy in deciding which teachers to lay off, ending the seniority system that teacher unions favor. She explained it this way in :

What this bill would do is it would change the order of layoff, so that when a layoff occurs, teachers would be laid off first, based on licensure; second, based on effectiveness; and third, based on seniority.

The bill passed the Legislature but .

"As the policy stands, experience does not equal seniority," Wolf said in a statement after Dayton's veto. "LIFO reform would have opened doors for effective, experienced teachers to move to schools where their skills are needed without the fear of being laid off for lack of seniority."

The laid-off teachers can re-apply for their jobs but Centennial District teachers will have priority, according to the Star Tribune, which quoted Wolf sounding philosophical about the change in school governance and her own layoff:

Wolf said she "doesn't have a problem with it if the kids are in the center of it," but said she worries "the Centennial School District will treat it just like any other school."