It’s tough to get rid of a teacher in Florida schools

By at 15 March, 2010, 9:15 am

The teacher came to Pasco County's Sand Pine Elementary School as a castoff from another campus, with the union hoping the teacher could get another chance to succeed with a different principal. He was good for about six weeks, principal Ginny Yanson recalled. Then, the teacher started reusing lesson plans week after week. He gave students the same tests at the beginning and end of each lesson. He made inappropriate remarks to female teachers. The teacher's student discipline included having students pace in the sun for a half an hour. But when Yanson tried to get rid of the teacher, who had a continuing contract, she couldn't do it. Recommendations for improvement lasted for a short while before he relapsed. Boxes of documentation for hearings resulted in moving the

teacher to an annual contract, but not removal. And every meeting with the teacher that followed lasted half a day, followed by his leaving for the rest of the day with a headache. In a school with more than 100 employees, "it's really hard to find the time to do all that," said Yanson, a 32-year Pasco administrator, adding that she has worked hard to "hire smart in the first place" to avoid the hassle. Read more about what Yanson and others have to say about a move in Tallahassee to change the way teachers are evaluated, paid, retained and fired in a story that ran in today's St. Petersburg Times . *

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It’s tough to get rid of a teacher in Florida schools

Categories : Education | Florida | Tallahassee | Tampa




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