The Duval County School Board starts firing teachers

They don’t call it firing, they call it non-reappointing but it means the same thing. But worse than being fired it means you can’t look for a job, well teaching anyways either. Non-reappointed teachers are not allowed to work in the district for a year and it also makes getting jobs in other districts more difficult, after all who wants somebody who has been fired.

Some of you might be thinking; good lets get rid of the bad teachers, the problem with that is many of the teachers being fired aren’t the bad teachers. On the contrary many are good teachers and are being moved out so principals can bring in their favorites from other schools or friends looking for a job or to save a buck. These non-reappointed teachers do have one thing in common and that’s they are mostly young teachers, young teachers who have now had their careers kneecapped, basically over just as it began. This practice is wrong and how do I know it’s wrong? Well keep reading.

According to Vicki Reynolds the districts human resources director the majority of non-reappointed teachers were given satisfactory evaluations, which means by definition their performance, as a teacher was acceptable. If the principal thought they were unsatisfactory they could have been given that rating.

None of the non-reappointed teachers I talked to were given an opportunity to improve. In fact the first inkling that they had that their jobs were in danger was when they were told they were going to be non-reappointed. If we take the principals at face value that means they allowed their students to be taught by bad teachers and did nothing to improve their situations; if we take them at face value that is.

But what’s worse of all is that many of the non-reappointed teachers were not given a reason as to why they were being non-reappointed. That’s right folks, the district does not have to give a reason and when principals were asked, why, that is was they often said. Say the non-reappointment was legitimate, well how are people supposed to improve if they aren’t told what they have done wrong.

Is this starting to sound less like a bad teacher problem and more like a bad administrator problem?

Take the case of Becky Tribble teacher at Fishweir Elementary. Her first two years she received evaluations of high performing, the best evaluations Duval County gives and rare for teachers just starting out to get (Becky had taught before but it was 8 years prior in another county). Suddenly Fishweir gets a new principal and she goes from HP to satisfactory to non-reappointed, fired in the course of a year. How does a teacher go from being one of the best to one of the worse in the course of a year? How does this new principal justify firing one of the best teachers from the previous two years? Oh that’s right she doesn’t have to. She doesn’t have to give a reason at all and the district allows this. It’s shameful.

The district has asked the public to contact the state and tell them to do the right thing by properly funding education. I want to do this, I want to stick up for the district and be proud of it but how can I ask the state to do the right thing, how can I be proud of the district when the district doesn’t have to do the right thing and doesn’t see the problem with doing the wrong thing.

Teachers that have satisfactory evaluations shouldn’t be non-reappointed, teachers should be told what they are doing wrong and given a chance to improve and nobody should be fired without a reason given. Imagine if teachers treated their students the same way the district can treat its teachers. I think the city would be angry.

The district calls for the state and community to do what is right. It is time they did so too.

Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher