Last week (November 9th) I participated in my first board meeting. I wanted to highlight two issues that I raised and explain my positions.
Suspension of Teacher’s License
The administration asked the board to suspend a teacher’s license for a year. I voted against this request. Here’s why.
Teacher contracts are pretty one-sided affairs. The district’s primary responsibility is to pay teachers. But even this promise comes with caveats. The district reserves the right to reduce teacher salary or even eliminate a position entirely if circumstances require it. The district also has the right to move a teacher to a different school at any time. In a district the size of Richland One, this means that a teacher could be moved to a school that is 45 minutes or more away from the school at which they originally agreed to teach.
On the other hand, teachers are not provided similar flexibility. For example, if the circumstances of their teaching environment change drastically, they cannot simply get out of their contract. And if a teacher resigns in the middle of this contract, the school district has the discretion to request that the State Board of Education suspend that teacher’s license for a year. To be clear, the district is not required to make this request. But if the district does request a suspension, the State Board will suspend that teacher’s license with language that the teacher’s actions constitute “unprofessional conduct, breach of contract, willful neglect of duty, and failure to comply with the provisions of a contract without the written consent of the local school board.” Every district in the state will be notified, and the teacher will not be able to teach in a public school until the state department has reinstated their license a year later (at the earliest).
During normal times there are all sorts of reasons that a teacher may resign while under contract. But the unique circumstances of the last year and a half have created even more compelling reasons why teachers—like many other professionals—have left their jobs. And, yet, Richland One is seeking suspension of these teachers’ licenses. I think this is short-sighted and fails to treat teachers like the professionals they are.
Why do we feel justified doing this to teachers, and only to teachers? The argument is that teachers are so important to their students that a departure in the middle of a school year (or even in the summer) will harm students and, therefore, should be penalized. I get it. Losing teachers during the school year (or any other time for that matter) is difficult. But I don’t think this justifies our approach. At the very least, suspension should be the exception, not the rule.
In my discussions with teachers and principals, this tactic is backfiring. Teachers see it as unfairly heavy-handed. And principals don’t want even more teachers removed from the potential pool of eligible teachers for the next year when we are already struggling to keep our classrooms filled with qualified teachers. Of course, future employers will know that a teacher left in the middle of a contract and can weigh that in their decision about hiring them. Indeed, at last week’s board meeting we hired new teachers, at least two of whom were currently teaching at another school outside our district. If these teachers were subject to the same punishment we are requesting for our teachers, we would have at least two fewer teachers right now.
If we really want to show that we care about our students, we should make sure we are creating the atmosphere and providing the support that attracts and keeps teachers in our schools. If we can only keep a teacher in the classroom out of fear of losing the ability to teach anywhere in the state for the next year, I think the problem is with us, not the teacher.
Re-Opening Board Meetings to the Public
At the last meeting I raised the issue of re-opening our meetings to the public. Except in extreme circumstances, meetings of public bodies should be, well, public. I certainly agree that there were good reasons to close these meetings during the pandemic. And I also applaud the district for live-streaming these meetings to increase participation. But we are now meeting in large school auditoriums—the same auditoriums that are safely hosting in-person gatherings for school events. I am certain we can safely accommodate the public at these meetings. I am equally certain that the public deserves that accommodation.