Fix school boards before taking tenure away from teachers | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I had the opportunity recently to observe the NC Senate Education Committee debate S 423 which, if it passes, will create a Joint Legislative Oversight Committee to study "teacher tenure" in North Carolina and report back its recommendations to the 2012 General Assembly. S 423 is being supported by the new Republican leadership and is likely to pass both houses. In the past, every time the subject has been brought up the Teachers' Union in North Carolina has been successful in killing it. They may not be successful this time.

    Teacher tenure is a bad idea. The problem is that not having tenure for teachers is an even worse idea.

    I have never forgotten the first local school board meeting I ever attended. I was there for a different reason, but the "big" item on the agenda was "Personnel action for next year." Each principal came with a list of teachers that the principal was recommending be re-employed for the next year. I was glad to see my name on the list my principal passed around.

    Most of the lists got no discussion and were approved very quickly. But when it came to my school (the high school in the district), one member of the board made a motion that a good friend of mine who taught right down the hall from me be "held for discussion." Nobody objected, and as I recall no vote was taken but they voted to approve all the other names. Then the chairman sent us all out in the hall while they talked about my friend. After about an hour we were all called back in and no action was taken. But the next morning my friend told me that he had been called to the office and told that he would not be returning next year. No reason, no hearing, no recourse.

    But I knew what had happened. You see, the woman who had objected to my friend's being rehired had a daughter who was a spoiled brat. I knew that to be so because I had her in my U. S. History class. She took Chemistry with my friend. She was failing Chemistry and was barely squeaking by in History. I had worked with her after school many afternoons trying to help her pass History. My friend had offered to help her but it was difficult to learn Chemistry without the labs and you couldn't really create a lab for one student after school.

    Long story, short; the girl's mother wanted her daughter passed regardless of what she knew. My friend refused to just pass her. That's why my friend lost his job.

    This was in 1965. Shortly afterwards North Carolina adopted the "continuing contract" law. It provided that any teacher's contract would automatically renew each year unless the board voted to non-renew. That did not fix the problem but it was a step in the right direction.

    The next year another of my friends lost his job because he did not win enough basketball games. I was ready to leave teaching.

    But the Legislature adopted the "tenure law." It said that after three successful years of teaching you could be fired only for any one of fifteen reasons, including "inadequate performance, neglect of duty, failure to comply with policies adopted by the local board" and a dozen other reasons.

    When I became a principal, my mentor told me: "As a principal your number-one duty is to protect the health and safety of your students and employees. Your number-two duty is to be sure your students have the best available teacher you can find for them." I never forgot that. So over the next ten years I fired eleven teachers. I can still recite their names to you. I took the job seriously.

    In my first principals' meeting when I became superintendent I announced that "after three years from today there will be no such thing as a poor teacher in Greenville City Schools...only poor principals or a poor superintendent." And within two years we fired a dozen teachers. A number of these teachers appealed their termination to the courts. We never lost a single case. Most of the cases never went to trial after the Union lawyers saw our evidence.

    When I started teaching School Law, I taught students who were going to become principals and superintendents how to fire incompetent teachers. And I told them that if they would simply follow the process and procedures that I would teach them, they would never lose a case, or I would pay their lawyer bills. To my knowledge none of them ever lost a case.

    So don't tell me you can't fire a poor teacher under the current law. I know that is not true.

    Now, must you follow the law to fire a teacher? Yes, indeed. But the process is basically simple and nothing really but fairness. If a teacher is a poor teacher, tell them what they are doing wrong. Give them an opportunity to correct it and then if they don't correct it, move for dismissal. But document what happened. Don't tell me it can't be done.

    To be sure, dismissing a teacher is not easy. But it should not be easy. It is an important thing that deserves being done correctly. Remember, it is the principal's number-two job. Why should it be easy?

    Teachers and principals need protection from being fired like my friend, the Chemistry teacher, was fired. No professional should be treated like he was treated and no profession should be treated the way some school-board members will treat teachers if they can get away with it. That has been proven right here in Beaufort County by people who currently sit on our Board of Education. No principal should be fired because he would not get rid of a coach who did not play some "important person's" child as much as the Big Shot thought they should be played. That's why we need a tenure law, not only for teachers but for principals also.

    Fix the problem of rogue school-board members if the General Assembly needs to "do something" about our schools. But until they fix that problem, they should leave the teachers alone.

    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.