AB 1690, a new bill that specifies minimum standards for evaluation procedures, workload distribution, and seniority rights for nonunionized adjunct instructors at California community colleges, has passed the state Senate and advanced to the governor’s desk. Under AB 1690, instructors who have taught for six semesters or nine quarters with satisfactory evaluations would be placed on a priority list for assignments and would be guaranteed to maintain their workload in future terms. The bill would also provide an opportunity for remediation if a subsequent evaluation is unsatisfactory and require that staffing reductions take place according to seniority.

According to the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, 65.6% of California community college faculty are adjuncts (http://www.asccc.org/content/overuse-and-undercompensation-part-time-faculty-california-community-colleges). For more information about the working conditions of adjuncts in California community colleges, see the UPTE’s 2011 report Supporting California’s Community College Teaching Faculty at http://www.upte.org/cc/supportingfaculty.pdf. To read NCTE’s Position Statement on the Status and Working Conditions of Contingent Faculty, see https://www2.ncte.org/statement/contingent_faculty.