D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is expected today to introduce long-awaited legislation that would give her the power to remove hundreds of ineffective members of the school system’s central office.

Rhee has said publicly that streamlining the 900-plus central office staff is absolutely critical to her efforts to reform the 50,000-student system.

According to Mafara Hobson, Rhee’s spokeswoman, the legislation “asks for amendments that would be helpful in having on staff a more efficient group.”

What it does not get into specifically is who will be terminated and the precise number of employees Rhee wants to remove.

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“And it doesn’t involve buying out contracts,” she added.

In the past, Rhee indicated that somewhere in the vicinity of 200 central office staff could go and that most are non-union employees.

Actually crafting the legislation took close to a month from the time the idea was vetted, mainly because DCPS did not have anywhere close to a complete count of its workers, Rhee said last week.

In a recent speech to the Democrats for Education Reform that circulated on YouTube, she explained in strong language that the cuts were “the only way that we’ll be able to change the system.”

Nathan Saunders, vice president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, said he hadn’t yet seen the legislation but that his organization was extremely interested in the specific language utilized.

“It could be one of the most important pieces of legislation for all public sector employees within the last decade ... contingent on how it is written it could potentially set back gains and raise a question of whether or not public sector employees will be at will,” Saunders said. “It could set a precedent far beyond the public schools to police, fire and others.”

Hobson told The Examiner that the bill could officially come forward before the weekend but that it was not absolutely certain, as of Thursday evening.

“We’re 90 percent sure,” she said, adding that the chancellor spent a good deal of time Thursday meeting with council members about the proposal.

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com