The presentation Wednesday evening by paraprofessionals in the Butler School District raised important issues, including the unfairness of seniority rules or “bumping” and also the idea that the students’ best interests should be the top priority when facing budget cuts.

The paraprofessionals, who spoke at a finance committee meeting, brought up issues that should be debated at the local — and state — levels.

The school board has proposed cutting 18 to 19 paraprofessional positions in next year’s budget and the presentation Wednesday shed light on how those cuts might harm students, particularly those with special needs and those facing the greatest challenges in school. The paraprofessionals also said they object to the process known as bumping, by which a person slated for furlough can bump or take the job of someone else with less seniority.

Across the country, governors, state legislators and school administrators have pointed to the harm that can result from seniority-based staff cuts. Seniority rules were established to prevent favoritism and make layoff decisions fair. But the seniority-based layoff plan of “last hired, first fired” can produce perverse results. In some cases, schools are forced to lay off some of their best and most effective teachers just because they are recent hires.

While experience is an important factor, it is not the only factor that matters. Some people are simply better teachers than others — just as some people are better doctors, accountants, engineers or sales associates.

The number of years on the job is not the only measure of a teacher’s effectiveness. This is especially true in today’s climate where tenure, which is essentially a job for life, is given to teachers within a few years of being hired. The process for awarding tenure should not be automatic.

Granting tenure should be more rigorous, to allow school district officials to truly evaluate effectiveness.

Everyone in a school knows which teachers are best and which are least effective. The students, the parents, and school administrators all know which teachers excel.

Developing an objective and fair system for evaluating teachers is difficult, but it is not impossible. Some teacher evaluation system is critical, because it makes no sense to use seniority rules alone in layoffs.

Another point of the paraprofessionals’ presentation was that eliminating student support positions will harm students.

The larger message is that many budget cuts will likely harm students. That’s something that everyone should keep in mind. School board members should remember that — and so should teachers.

Teachers should think about the impact of layoffs on students and what they can do to minimize that impact. One option is to accept a one-year wage freeze, which Gov. Tom Corbett has asked of teachers and school officials across the state.

Most teachers, however, including those in the Butler district, have rejected the pay freeze, despite knowing that the cost savings could reduce the number of teacher and paraprofessional layoffs.

In Harrisburg, there is proposed legislation that would ease some restrictions on school districts when it comes to laying off teachers. The bill, which was passed by the state Senate, would allow districts to lay off teachers without regard to seniority, but only if the teachers had received two recent performance reviews rating them unsatisfactory.

Butler’s paraprofessionals added a valuable perspective to the school budget debate. They suggested that seniority alone is not a good tool for layoffs, and they reminded everyone that staff cuts will harm students. Those are two points that teachers, and teachers unions, still refuse to acknowledge.