 |
| courtesy of Pixabay CC0 Public Domain |
This morning’s e-mail contained a letter outlining a new School
Board policy that details a long list of things teachers must do as part of
their job, things a teacher must refrain from doing, and promising dire
consequences if a teacher does not conform to the new policy.
Teachers are
going to be required to read this policy and sign a form saying that they’ve
read and understood the policy. There is a disclaimer on the signature page
stating a teacher’s signature does not necessarily indicate agreement with the
policy, but reminding teachers they are bound by the policy regardless of
whether or not they agree with it.
In truth, there aren’t many stipulations in the policy that
weren’t already part of a teacher’s job. Many of the items listed simply repeat
what is already stated in state law regarding a professional educator’s
responsibilities. It appears the School Board has decided it needs hard-copy
proof in each teacher’s file to show the teachers have been made plainly aware
of the policies and cannot claim not to have known about such policies if
accused of violating one or more of them.
Is this a petty act on behalf of the School Board? In today’s
litigious society, it probably isn’t. Will a lot of teachers complain about the
policy and especially about having to sign it? Yes, they probably will.
A lot of teachers will probably complain about having to sign a
document showing they’ve read and understood the policy, even if they don’t
agree with it, because it is one more thing that puts another burden on the
teachers while offering them nothing in return.
Nowhere in this new policy full
of responsibilities and obligations of the educator is there any new
protections for the teacher.
For example: A parent upset about a grade a student received on
a report card comes to the school, goes to the teacher’s classroom, pounds on
the door, interrupts class, demands to talk to the teacher right then, and then
commences to lambaste the teacher within earshot of the teacher’s class. The
new policy doesn’t, nor does any other School Board policy, offer the teacher
any protection from the parent’s invective nor does it offer the teacher any
recourse other than to report the parent’s behavior to the Principal after the
fact.
All our District’s teachers know that if the situation is
brought to the attention of the Central Office or the School Board, those
luminaries will metaphorically throw the teacher under the bus. And because
teachers in this state are banned by the State Constitution from collective
action, if any of the rest of us try to take any type of work action to show
support for the aggrieved teacher we could wind up in jail.
On rare occasions, when the parent has made credible physical
threats or actually laid hands on a teacher, the Principal has banned the
parent from campus and, on even rarer occasion, the District has backed her up.
With this new policy in place, it seems even less likely that
the District will support the teachers than it was before. In truth, all they’ve
done is codify their previously unwritten policy of holding the teachers
accountable for anything and everything while letting the parents, the
students, and themselves off the hook.
Now that the District has this new policy in place the teachers
have to sign every year, I
wonder if they’ll ever come up with a list of Parent Responsibilities and
Obligations, which lists what a parent may and may not due in relation to their child’s
teachers and the school, that the parents must sign before their students can be admitted to school. Something tells me not to hold my breath
waiting for that one.
As always, I remain,
The Exhausted Educator
No comments:
Post a Comment