By Tom
I was standing in the faculty room one morning, waiting for the coffee to brew. Two colleagues were talking about principals they’d worked with, and one of them said to me, “Tom, you would be a great principal. I would love to work in your school.”
She should have waited until I had some of that coffee. I would have been a lot less blunt. “Really? because the first thing I’d do would be to fire you.”
Choosing to believe that I was speaking facetiously, she laughed nervously and hurried off.
(Fun fact: the word facetiously has every vowel, in order, including Y!)
Actually, I wasn’t kidding. If I really was a principal and she really was on my faculty, I really would fire her. She was a bad teacher. Ineffective. Weak.
But it would have been difficult.
First I would have to place her on probation. But before that, I would have to “… meet with the employee in an attempt to resolve matters relating to performance before probation is recommended. The conference shall be held no later than January 20. The employee shall have the opportunity to have an Association representative in attendance at the conference.”
I think I could handle that, and I would surely take care of it well before January 20th. At this point, my ultimate intentions would likely be clear to this teacher. She would begin to hate me. So would her friends. The tension would be palpable. The Association would also be involved, and they would be checking to see that I followed the procedure to the letter. Which I would.
However, the final decision to place this teacher on probation would have to come from the superintendant. And as long as his wife wasn’t in the same Curves class as this particular teacher, my recommendation would be key. Specifically, “The Superintendent or designee shall review the evaluator’s recommendation for probation. If the Superintendent or designee determines that there is an alternative to probation, he/she may continue to work with the parties involved.”
My recommendation would have to be fairly detailed, including:
– A definition of the problem in terms of deficiencies based upon the evaluative criteria and/or the employee's Plan of Improvement;
– Expectations delineating levels of performance that would constitute acceptable performance in the problem areas defined;
– A prescription for remediation which spells out a course of action and time expectations for the employee involved to reach an acceptable level of performance;
– A prescription for assistance which spells out a course of action whereby the employee will be assisted, counseled, or mentored to improve the level of performance to an acceptable level;
– A tentative schedule which provides for at least twice monthly meetings during the probationary period between the evaluator and employee to discuss and provide a written assessment of the progress, if any, made by the employee toward an acceptable level of performance.
These are more than mere hoops through which I’d need to jump. Clearly, I would need to make a good-faith effort to help this teacher become more effective. This could get tricky. In order to fire this person, I would need to show that she didn’t improve, despite my efforts to help her improve. Part of my job as her principal, of course, is to help her improve. Therefore, her failure to improve would be, in part, my failure as her supervisor.
On the other hand; if she does improve, I’m stuck with her. See what I mean? It’s tricky.
Let’s say I do what I can to help her. I provide a mentor; a great teacher who models effective instruction, watches her teach and coaches her well. And let’s say she still falls short of the evaluation criteria.
Then, and only then, could I fire her. Well, sort of. Technically, “no later than May 5, a summarized written evaluation report with recommendations for future action shall be prepared for the Superintendent. A copy shall be furnished to the employee. In the event that the report contains any information not previously made known to and discussed with the employee, the employee may submit a written, signed statement which shall be attached to the evaluation report and recommendation. Within five (5) days from the receipt of the report, the employee may request and will be given a meeting with the Superintendent. The meeting shall be held within five (5) days of receipt of the request.”
Firing her, as you can see, would be intense and difficult. And should I actually pull it off, it would represent a failure on the part of everyone involved. Including me. It would leave me emotionally exhausted and alienated from the rest of the faculty. Morale would be low. Low morale does nothing to improve student learning.
I would, at that point, make a solemn vow: to be very, very careful about hiring the next teacher; to be very, very careful about planning building-level professional development; and to be very, very careful about evaluating teachers and recommending them for tenure.
In other words, I would be very, very careful about doing my job as a principal.
Well, Tom, once that teacher is moved up to ‘acceptable’ status, I’d say if your school is anything other than teeny-tiny, it’s time to find another mark. Chances are, that’s not the only struggling teacher in the school. It might be best to keep an eye on that teacher (in case there’s any backsliding, which would mean further intervention) while you go on to offer help to another.
I don’t think any school will ever be entirely staffed by effective teachers. If you can get yours to where it’s a mix of effective and acceptable, I think you’d be looking at a pretty impressive group.
Point well taken, Pezz. I do come across as a little too harsh.
I think too many people have a faulty notion of what “tenure” means in this state. It simply means a teacher can’t be fired without cause and without due process; it does not mean a job for life or some other misconception.
I like WA State’s tenure laws because it does provide the opportunity to improve’ in fact, it’s mandated. We help our students improve; we don’t just give them one opportunity and then give them a ‘F.’
Why would we not give our teaching colleagues the opportunity to improve? If someone moves from an unacceptable level to an acceptable one, that’s a good thing.
The state is moving towards an improvement model with teachers, just as we have with students. I think it’s appropriate. Late bloomers do exist in professional life as well as personal life.
I was once involved in the remediation of a struggling teacher. Toward the end of the year, after there was no real improvement, the principal punted. She accepted a letter of resignation from the teacher in exchange for a letter of recommendation from the district.
I ran into that teacher a few years later; she was working at another district.
As much as I hate the idea of taking away a teacher’s career, there are times when it needs to happen. Just like when my first boss took away my career as a fry cook back when I was sixteen years old.
I was not right for the job.
My wife and I have two sons. When they were small she would issue an ultimatum and tell them they had until the count of three to comply. They were a handful, and on some particularly trying days she was heard to say “One, two, I told you so three!”
That’s pretty much the situation a teacher on probation is in. On January 20 the principal has counted to two, and on May 5 he says three.
Tom’s right: the decision has to be made early, when the teacher has provisional status.
Not all districts collect the flotsam and jetsam of the educational world. Mine, unfortunately does. I think Seattle is so big, so spread out, we’ve gotten like the Roman Empire just before it all fell apart. We even have lead in the water!
So, Seattle has teachers who haven’t taught well for years, who have become department heads who don’t know what teaching is, who have become vice principals and principals who have forgotten what good teaching is. It’s inertia in action, so to speak.
When I taught in Lake Washington, teachers were let go every year, most of them after their first or second year. They never got tenure.
I think they probably got hired in Seattle.
Luckily, things are changing. Principals are being forced to use a rigorous teacher evaluation system, that’s more about instruction than scores, and they’re being forced to upgrade their staffs. It is about time.
And here’s the cycle as it should be:
Good teacher gets hired by a good principal; teacher improves over the years, thanks in part by professional development and constructive evaluation facilitated by good principal; good teacher becomes a good principal; hires good teacher; repeat.
Firing people is painful, expensive and demoralizes for everyone. It is not the way to school reform.
We, as a profession, need to nourish and support good teaching.
This year a teacher with 12 years experience (the most in our school) has found themselves in the cross hairs. They were just put on probation. No teacher I’ve seen has ever gotten themselves off probation. Too much time has been invested. The principal’s mind has been made up. In short, their teaching career is over. C’est le vi.
But what does this say about the 9 previous evaluators of this teacher? Was the system previously broken & now fixed. Principals are now suddenly able to identify ineffective teachers in a manner that was not possible in the decade prior? Or is a new principal cutting their teeth by going through the process to evaluate out a teacher? Here’s the cycle as I see it- new principal comes to school, evaluates out a teacher, pisses off staff, moves to new school, cycle repeats. In 9 years I’ve had 8 principals & a teacher is removed every year or two.
Interestingly, this teacher had the highest reading gains of their (my) team last year. What should happen when the “data” conflicts with the principal’s evaluation? Currently, nothing: the data is irrelevant. But as new systems of evaluation are created this may change.
It is not a very comfortable time to be a teacher…at least I have tenure…ahem.
Clix: I don’t know if I’m smart enough to write satire. What I was trying to do was to simply show how difficult it is to “not renew the contract” of a teacher. In my district, the process involves remediation. Therefore, a teacher who enters into this process has to not only be really bad to start with, but he also has to show no improvement once the process starts. Obviously, if a teacher enters this process and comes out as an “effective teacher” then everyone wins. But according to the language, a teacher could be horrible and improve to the point where he is only “acceptable” and still be allowed to teach. “Effective” and “acceptable” are two very different concepts, as far as I’m concerned. That’s what makes it difficult. And that’s why we need principals who are totally committed to professional development and effective evaluation.
if she does improve, I’m stuck with her.
Mmhm. Because it’d be terrible to be stuck with an effective teacher.
Was this post written as satire and I’m just not seeing it?
Classic.
You are excellent. I think it’s hilarious and important that you said what you did.
While it’s true that it’s a lot of work for principals to fire a teacher (in our contract the phrasing is, “nonrenewal of contract”) it’s not too much work. My principal has about 60 teachers, only about 4 of whom are requiring that he pursue nonrenewal of their contracts.
On the other hand, the careful recipe for improvement that you spell out is something that’s required of me for every child – and as a secondary teacher I have 150 of them. On top of measuring their ability and planning a course of improvement for every child, I need to track and deal with learning styles, behavior, and the impact each child’s personal life has on his academics.
I’m expected to do it. If I don’t, my name might be published in the paper alongside the phrase, “Less effective than her peers.”
We’re expecting excellence of our teachers. I expect excellence of someone who doesn’t have to grade, doesn’t have to plan lessons or master content, doesn’t have to help children learn to be adults, and who gets paid a whole lot more than I do. I expect my principal to do what he needs to do to get rid of poor teachers, and I’d like to see society and policy-makers start to expect it, too.