Flow Chart for Terminating A Tenured Teacher?

[Pisces]

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/03/getting-rid-of-bad-teachers-ctd-1.html ( Could not post chart here is the link) Teachers is this correct???


The Chicago Tribune has put together a great, if depressing, graphic showing all the steps required to fire a tenured but ineffective teacher in the Windy City. The short version? It takes 2-5 years, and as many as 27 steps—which, according to the Tribune, is why many school principals don’t even try.


A reader in San Francisco shares a similar experience:

My wife is the principal of an urban public school. She actually succeeded in getting one particularly bad apple to resign, finally, after a dedicated two-year effort that began immediately after she took over this particular school from her predecessor. I have grey hairs because of that ordeal (and it’s not even my job!). My wife literally feared for her life.

The real tell, though, is that this teacher was so bad for so long that everyone in the district, right up to the Superintendent, rolled their eyes at the mere mention of his name. He "taught" in the district for 16 years. He bounced from one school site to the next, successfully avoiding any accountability for his criminal incompetence until my wife became his boss.

Here is the process: She rated him “unsatisfactory” for three consecutive classroom evaluations. This was the first prerequisite to any escalation of his case, and no small feat considering principals are only allowed to perform evaluations of tenured teachers every other year, cannot schedule more than one evaluation per teacher per 45-day period, must schedule them well ahead of time and must meet with the teacher (and their union rep if they so choose) before and after each scheduled evaluation to review the evaluation criteria, craft an improvement plan and provide support.

After three consecutive “unsats” the case can be escalated to a union-sponsored review panel of twelve people. Panel members include the head of the local teacher’s union and at least six other union members. They typically assign a “coach” to assist the bad teacher twice per week (at public expense) with lesson planning and classroom instruction. The coach, who is a member of the same union and is only at the school for two half-days per week, must file monthly progress reports back to the panel for six months (and may not consult with, or consider evidence provided by, the principal who is on-site every day).


I ask the teachers on this board if this is correct??? If it is this seems unreasonable. It does not take 2 to 5 years to fire a tenured employee at any other job. We are talking about the worst of the worst teachers. Not the good ones. There are at least 10% that we could agree don't want the job anymore. Is this the process?

[woo me with science]

1. Here's the chart direct from chicagotribune.com.

[Indydem]

2. Prepare yourself...

To be called a freeper and threatened with a tombstone.

Folks don't appreciate it when you point out what their union "benefits" actually mean.

[ejpoeta]

3. there is a reason why it should be hard to fire someone. my husband

suggested that the last in last out of unions was a bad thing. but if you think about it.... this isn't really about good teachers or bad teachers. experienced teachers get paid more.... like anyone who has been at a place of employment longer. if there were nothing to stop an employer from doing it, they would get rid of the experienced folks getting paid more money first and keep the inexperienced ones that get paid less. You are seeing it all over the place. It isn't about how hard it is to get rid of bad teachers.... it's the fact that they want to get rid of the teachers that get paid more money. They don't care if they are good teachers or not.

[Pisces]

6. This is a valid point, especially with the budget cuts being proposed everywhere.

I will be accused of trying to start a shitstorm, but I am about to enter the process with young children. I am just opening my eyes to the issues and problems. I don't believe one side can be all
right and the other all wrong. There must be some truth on both sides.

[ejpoeta]

11. unions have their problems. but the ability to stand united against

your employer is very important. They could come up with ways to get rid of bad teachers..... the problem is, how do you define a bad teacher. I have had my share of them, but thinking back to my school career, I could count the number of bad teachers on one hand. I have two kids in school currently. My oldest has ADHD and it has been a big struggle with her. She is super smart and didn't have trouble with her grades, but her behavior has always been an issue. Most of the teachers worked with me to correct this. I only had one who seemed to not be interested in helping me help her by simply sending something home to let me know if she was good or bad in school so I could reward her if she was good. Emily is now in 6th grade and has improved greatly. Thanks in part to some really awesome and patient teachers. And I make sure they know.... I am with them. I am not that parent that will blame the teacher for my kid's behavior. If she does something wrong I want to know about it so that I can correct it!!

My second child is in kindergarten. I have tried to teach her to read, but I am amazed at the strides she has made under the teaching of her teacher. She has the same teacher as my oldest had. To be able to get the kids to sit and listen and to LEARN!! 15 kids!! I am always amazed. Ashley is really shining as her reading ability grows thanks to the hard work of her teacher. Frankly I don't think teachers get paid enough!!!

[snappyturtle]

4. To answer your question, I don't really know if this is the process or not.

You may want to consider the source....a republican paper and Andrew Sullivan, need I say more. After all, school districts don't handle firing in a uniform manner. In fairness, I'm a retired teacher so I suppose methods may have changed.

[Lifelong Protester]

5. Really? That may be a reality somewhere, but believe me, I

have removed teachers, tenured or not, in WAY less time. It can be done if you have the facts and documentation.

I am sick of this BS. Our profession doesn't want any poor performing teachers in it EITHER. My job as a principal is to promote learning, best teaching practices, tie everything to student achievement, read the data, look for ways to improve, mentor the young teacher, encourage the veterans to be mentors to the new teachers, keep up good PR for my school, act as a liaison between teacher and parent if there is a concern. make sure the halls are clean, report to the school board, report to the District Administrator... shall I go on?

I'm sick of being dumped on. I'm sick of the lies.

[Pisces]

9. I know this must feel extremely personal to you, but I don't want to dump on you or the majority

of teachers. Growing up I was lucky to have a majority of great teachers. I just want that for my children.

[ejpoeta]

13. when obama made that speech calling for more teachers i laughed.

who in their right mind would want to go into a field that is getting hammered right now and dumped on!! I think it is deplorable how the people who teach our young people to read and write and have thinking skills are getting the shaft!!

[sinkingfeeling]

7. It took about 12 to 18 months to fire someone from the Fortune 500 corporation I worked for. There

were no unions at all. The 'bad' employee had to be advised of his/her non-performance, put on an improvement plan, re-evaluated, and it then had to 'go up the ladder' for approval before a dismissal.

[Starry Messenger]

8. Soon there won't be any teachers left. I wouldn't worry about it.

Parents will just be taking their children in to minimum wage environments with "education associates" in tidy smocks with logos.

[ieoeja]

10. I'm not a teacher, but even I know the final appeals process applies to *any* job.

Anybody can sue their employer if they feel they have been fired for improper reasons. You most likely won't win. But you can do it. And that is all the last, 2-3 year piece means.

The rest is certainly stretched out much further than where I work. But I don't see a problem with it. You decide a long-term employee's performance has slipped. You make an effort to fix the employee's performance.

And the timeframes listed are due dates, not actual effort. Principal meets with teacher to create remediation plan = 7 days. I hope you don't seriously think the principal and teacher spend 7 full work days together working on this plan. This means the plan must be created and gone over with the teacher within 7 days of the teacher's first notification.

Remediation - 1 year. Again, the teacher works the plan for a full year. The principal checks on the teacher's progress from time to time. Well, isn't the principal supposed to be doing that for all employees all the time anyway? I suspect there is more to be documented, etc for a teacher under remediation, but it is not something the principal does every day for a full year.

[msanthrope]

12. No, this is consistent with other big-city teacher's unions--

Here's the article on NYC's rubber rooms, where teachers contest their firings for years.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill

[Xithras]

14. According to both you and the Trib, it takes 18-24 months

ANYONE, union or not, teacher or not, can file a lawsuit against a former employer for wrongful termination and run out the appeals process. To use possible court action as a way to pad-out the number to five years is bullcrap.

In the real world, few teachers sue, and 24 months is generally the upper limit for teachers who really want to fight it. Few even make it that far. Generally speaking, once it's clear that the school district wants to terminate you, most move on. There's good reason for this...a teacher who departs quickly has a chance to land at another school. A teacher who fights termination will have a difficult time finding future work.

While 24 months may seem like a long time, do try to keep this in mind: For a teacher to become tenured in the first place, they must have worked as an acceptable and competent teacher for an extended period of time WITHOUT those protections. The purpose of the above system is easy to understand if you look at it in this light. Instead of arbitrarily firing "bad" teachers, the system is designed to uncover and correct the reasons behind this formerly "good" teacher becoming a "bad" teacher. Given the choice between helping a "bad" employee to improve their performance, or throwing them out onto the street, which would YOU choose?

The process is long simply because it's designed to correct the problem first. Termination is reserved for educators who, for some reason, can't or won't be corrected.

[PATRICK]

15. Good unions and bad workers

Mostly when someone is fired there is personality and heat in the decision. If the rules make it difficult or with a set process it is not unlikely that the contract and basic rights have been violated. Truly bad workers will select themselves out with poor attendance, really bad misbehavior or just outright quitting.

Some will become supervisors where they really can be easily fired or entrapped. Or be promoted if they are as manipulatively skilled as they tried to be in the workforce.

Merit awards always seem to go the or the girl friends or pals with others thrown in as cover. Fire at will or promotion is commonly about the passion of the boss. A union contract forces the fairness and process that ordinary humanity in a capitalist authoritarian model cannot handle. The criers don't care about bad teachers. This is a tool to intimidate the entire rank and file into silence and submission. Rationally it doesn't have to be, but this is how it mostly operates and is definitely the not so hidden agenda.