End of the School Year Brings Teacher Firings
Yesterday evening, we received a tip from a DCPS high school teacher that nearly 20 teachers at their school received termination letters from their principal that afternoon, including the union building representative. This morning, Candi Peterson, a Washington Teachers' Union board member, has letters from two teachers on her blog, and while the exact number of teachers fired has not yet been announced, D.C. Wire reports that four types of school employees were terminated around the district:
Paraprofessionals who work with students, but did not attain the "highly qualified" standard required by federal law under the No Child Left Behind Act.
Teachers without a valid license.
Teachers who failed to meet the requirements of probation.
Teachers who were placed on 90-day improvement plans and who didn't show sufficient progress.
That some teachers are being let go shouldn't be a surprise. Earlier this year, about 150 teachers were placed on 90-day improvement plans, and last year 250 teachers and 500 teacher's aides who had failed to meet certification deadlines were terminated at the start of the summer.
What is interesting is who is being fired -- in the past, there has been vocal concern among older teachers that they would be targeted for layoffs, which doesn't appear to have been the case here. What we're hearing is that primarily younger teachers without tenure (i.e., less than three years teaching in DCPS) are being let go, including a number of first year teachers and some D.C. Teaching Fellows. (These teachers may have provisional licenses, and do not require the same interventions or extensive documentation necessary to dismiss tenured teachers.) However, it is at least a little surprising that so many young teachers were let go outright, given their limited experience, instead of being offered professional development or opportunities for improvement.
Teacher reactions vary. Some remaining teachers are concerned that some of the firings may have been politically motivated. A terminated teacher at the Columbia Heights Education Campus* says, "There have been several terminations that I know of where teachers were not even placed on any sort of improvement plan. (I was not on any sort of a plan...no 90-day, no anything...)."
Another reoccurring theme is that teachers' anger about the firings seems focused at their individual school administrations, rather than DCPS or Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. The same teacher quoted above said, "My frustration at the situation does not, as many of you suggest, have to do with Michelle Rhee or her mission. Instead, my frustration is focused entirely on the administration at CHEC, for the way that they are handling the firing process, and for the amount of truly amazing professionals they are terminating."
Another DCPS teacher-blogger added,
"Now, I don't agree with all of the terminations at my school. There's one teacher -- a first year DCTF -- who was really working hard and trying her best; she may not have been good, but I think she deserves the chance to improve. She was fired. And then there's another teacher -- a 25 year veteran -- who is never on time to class, shows movies at least once a week (not educational movies -- Shrek 2), and sits in the back of the room and reads the paper while her kids copy vocab words out of a text book. Oh, this is a physics class by the way. She was not fired. So, needless to say, I disagree with some of the firings. However...Sometimes people get fired... Heartless? Maybe. But we don't have an absolute right to a job."
This situation is still developing, so it's difficult to assess what happened across the district. Our sense is that while some of the firings may have been questionable, many others may have simply been procedural - teachers who had failed to receive certification, or meet improvement goals. And while firings are generally uncomfortable situations, it is important that principals have the ability to assemble what they see as the best possible staff for their students, even if there is disagreement over what that staff should look like. Any DCPS teachers have more information? Feel free to leave it in the comments.
*Full disclosure - I was a teacher at the Columbia Heights Education Campus from 2005-2007.