When Due Process is DOA, You Have the Right to Fight!

School districts are circumventing due process by replacing seasoned and conservative teachers with those who cost less money and who will feel comfortable with the new paradigm of liberal ideology.

Seven years ago, this coming April 25, I was called to the principal’s office for my End of the Year Evaluation (EOY). Teaching decades (Kindergarten through collegiate choral music), my 46th year of a successful career should certainly end on a positive note. The past nine years at this high school, my choir program had grown from three to eight choirs. There was no reason to dread this evaluation. Tenured, successful and hardworking are the tenants which should guarantee teachers everywhere an extension to their contract. If you’ve read any of my blogs or heard my podcasts, you know my EOY did not end well. I would encourage you to read/listen to my last blog/podcast (The Death of Due Process), if you haven’t. There was no cause for my firing. And there was no due process. Firing actually would not best describe my scenario. I could return to my school in a position “where  I could not be a part of any student interaction.”  What does that even mean?

After those harsh words from my principal, I stayed cocooned in my home for two days, physically ill and mentally spent. My students rallied and staged a sit-down outside the school’s office. My plight made the local newspaper where interviewed parents expressed disbelief regarding my forced departure. How was I going to complete 30 more days under these circumstances? My students had my six! One student met me at my car every morning, walked me to my classroom and encouraged his “minions” to guard my classroom keeping the administration at bay. And they did exactly that! On my first day back, the hallway was lined with my students, welcoming me back. They appeared shell-shocked, waiting with a sense of dread my tearful return. The tear ducts had already dried up. My heart was filled with the assurance my students respected me. I quipped on the way in that those students probably should not be physically supporting me. A quick thinking student spoke out clearly, “What are they going to do, fire you?!”

For five months this administration had openly harassed me. I kept the teachers’ association apprised of the constant badgering. Whereas the contact person was always sympathetic, the association was no where to be found when I was demoted. I’m sure the association viewed me as a “should-be retired teacher”, too old to defend. No knight in shining armor arose to my defense. Most of the teachers in my building avoided me as if they might catch my “don’t let the door hit you on the way out virus.” Tired of the daily commute to a campus, where at any moment a “gotcha” email could suddenly appear, I “retired” at the end of the term. I was not invited to the district retirement gala. My students threw me a going away party on my last day, which brought the end of my career to an insignificant and abrupt halt. So I walked away from 46 years of teaching without a fight. And still today, the biting sting of my treatment by an administration who needed to replace me with a less-qualified, less-expensive Gen Y teacher has left me wondering why I didn’t fight.

School districts are circumventing due process by replacing seasoned and conservative teachers with those who cost less money and who will feel comfortable with the new paradigm of liberal ideology. It’s that simple. You can’t fire “for cause” a successful, tenured teacher. The scripted playbook is to consistently harass teachers until they are willing to quit. I believe the word “conservative” has become a negative connotation for any educator. Whereas my classroom was free of any religiosity, I never masked nor apologized for my traditional values and point of view.

WHY TEACHERS DON’T FIGHT

My husband and I discussed extensively whether I should fight my “firing”. It came down to two reasons to walk away: the expense of an attorney and the purposely long, drawn-out school district system of filing a grievance. At a previous school, the admin joked openly and arrogantly about any teacher who tried to file a complaint. For these admin were fully aware of the three “mired in mud” steps:

1. File a grievance with the department head. He did not need to respond for 30 days.

2. If that wasn’t declined, continue the grievance to the division head who also had 30 days to answer.

3. If that wasn’t declined, the next step was the Dean, then the superintendent and lastly the school board. The complaint could lawfully sit on the desk of each administrator for 30 days before it was declined or passed on. In other words, a grievance could go five to six months without any guarantee of a hearing.

The fix was in and it still is today.

FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT

The time to stand your ground is before the overt harassment starts! Here are some ideas to facilitate a safe passage as a career teacher:

• Document, document, document! Every time a student, parent, colleague or administrator demonstrates a propensity of questioning your integrity, write it down. But it is just the facts! No feelings. Example:

It would be tempting to add that setting the meeting after the weekend was unfair and not knowing the student nor the complaint was an attack on your integrity. If you record the issue/action with a neutral point of view, the reader should be able to discern the unprofessional behavior.

• If your district has a teachers’ association or union, please join it. When you start to see a pattern of harassment, contact the association/union immediately and share the documentation. Make the association accountable!  You are paying their salaries through your dues. If they appear to be overburdened or inept, retain an attorney who specializes in contractual law. Yes, it’s costly but it is also proactive and could possibly save you from future unfair accusations and dismissal without cause, a far more expensive conclusion. Many years ago, a colleague spoke at her school’s staff meeting and proceeded to state that the summer program I was offering for grades 7-12 was not worthy of consideration. I asked our family attorney to get involved. He immediately told me that such statements were unlawful since it could impede my right to make a living. He sent the colleague a letter asking her to desist from such rhetoric or face consequences. That attorney expense of writing that letter made it clear to everyone in my district that there would be consequences if unfounded statements were made in a public setting. My summer program flourished for 10 years! Fighting for your rights is better than hoping everything will turn out well or worse yet, cowering in a corner.

• Do not appear weak to your students, parents, colleagues or administration. Looking back, I should have demanded face to face meetings with disgruntled parents and/or students, with an association member or an attorney present. Too often, pajama-clad parents use email to attack teachers before the first period bell rings, forcing teachers to percolate on the accusations throughout the school day.

• I should have challenged the admin team when their demeaning emails showed up in my inbox, again with a letter from the association or an attorney or a face-to-face meeting. It is impossible to be the teacher you need to be when you are dodging a constant barrage of unfounded complaints. It’s not fair to the teacher but more importantly, it’s not fair to the students. My teaching skills and classroom environment were negatively affected when harassment became the ploy of the day!

• Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. In today’s educational den of iniquity, thinking you can make a difference is impossible  in a school where only negative feedback and harassment exist. I gave my last school nine years thinking the administration would eventually accept me. I later found out from an admin team person, who was fired, that the principal had stated she didn’t like me and the team was to do everything possible to drive me out. I was in a lose/lose situation and nothing I could have ever accomplished would have been good enough to keep the wolves of disparagement away from my classroom door.

Shortly before my dismissal, I was called to an admin meeting, told it was my time to listen and not talk, scolded for almost an hour with the summation if I didn’t do what was asked of me, the administrator would not “walk beside me.” What if teachers treated students without due process? Should a teacher hastily call a private meeting with a student, scold him for 55 minutes, tell him he would no longer be supported and expect a good outcome? If due process of students is required, shouldn’t we demand it for our teachers?

Advocating for the teacher must be the primary goal of every community, school board and administration. This concept alone would act as a desirable recruitment tool and retention plan for both school districts and educators seeking stability in their schools. Attracting highly skilled, professional teachers would not hold the challenge it does today if districts resolved to hire the best and then protect their assets from constant persecution.

You do have the right to fight! More importantly, we all have the right and obligation to fight for the better treatment of our teachers.

And this from Rachel Platten:

I'll play my fight song

And I don't really care if nobody else believes

'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me!

And this from Paula Baack: Believe it!