JCTA Argues: Poor Performing Teachers are owed the Chance to become "the Best Teachers We Have"

Public schools are in the people business. Educators do a lot of good for a lot of folks every day - but the school system is not a benevolent society. Neither is it a employment agency for adults.

Countless teachers enhance the lives of Kentucky students in immeasurable ways every school day.

But a relatively small number of Kentucky teachers don't.

Some are simply lousy instructors who lack the skills needed to be effective with kids. Some could be effective, if they weren't so lazy. And some are abject disasters - acting inappropriately toward students and doing great harm in the process.

The public is best served by building the capacity of every school faculty in the state. Keep the best teachers. Keep the average teachers and help them get better. But discard those who can't cut it.

This from Toni Konz at C-J:

Judge asked to order teacher rehiring

A Jefferson Circuit Court judge will likely decide this week whether to grant a temporary injunction that would force Jefferson County Public Schools to rehire 18 teachers who were let go for alleged disciplinary and performance issues.

Judge James Shake heard three hours of testimony yesterday and arguments by attorneys from the school district and the teachers union.

The request for an injunction, filed in May as part of a lawsuit by the Jefferson County Teachers Association, would force the district to rehire all 18 teachers and reinstate their health and insurance benefits, which are set to expire July 31.

Everett Hoffman, an attorney representing the union, said Superintendent Sheldon Berman decided not to renew the contracts of the 18 teachers without giving them a chance to correct deficiencies.

"The district's policy and the labor agreement with JCTA requires that a teacher be given a 12-week opportunity to address their deficiencies before they are nonrenewed," Hoffman said. "That did not happen."

Berman has maintained that the district doesn't need to follow those procedures because it did not terminate the teachers but simply chose not to renew their one-year contracts.

He also said it is his responsibility to ensure the district has the highest-caliber instructors.

Hoffman said the 18 teachers will suffer irreparable harm if they are not rehired. "Some of these teachers have medical conditions; some are taking care of family members; some are single mothers or single parents; some could lose their homes if they do not get their jobs back," he said.

But Tyson Gorman, representing the school district, said the job loss doesn't rise to the level of irreparable harm.

"We don't doubt that there are hardships that will be faced by the plaintiffs through the loss of their employment and loss of income … but at the end of the day we are talking about things that are ordinary and economic," he said.

Gorman argued it's the students who are facing irreparable harm, on the "verge of getting back 18 teachers … who don't have very good performance and documented misconduct issues."

Hoffman said the lawsuit is not about "trying to keep bad teachers in schools."

"This is about the policies that are designed to help teachers become the best they can be," he said. "And when the superintendent and district bypass those procedures, they are denying our teachers that opportunity, but they are also denying the students in Jefferson County the opportunity of having some of the best teachers we have."