D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee said Tuesday that of the 266 teachers fired in October, one had been under investigation for “serious allegations of sexual misconduct.”
Six others had served suspensions for corporal punishment, two had served suspensions for excessive absences on multiple occasions, and “several other employees had egregious time and attendance records,” Rhee said.
The details were released in a letter to appease D.C. Council members angry over Rhee’s quote in Fast Company magazine: “I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of schools.”
But the gesture didn’t quite work.
The letter, which stopped short of an apology to offended former teachers, “is a beginning and hardly an end to the matter,” Council Chairman Vincent Gray said through a spokeswoman.
Gray is “seriously considering holding a hearing” to determine whether Rhee’s quote smeared the other fired teachers, and to debate again if they needed to be fired at all, his spokeswoman said.
Also of concern to council members — notably Gray, Marion Barry, D-Ward 8, Harry Thomas Jr., D-Ward 5, and Michael Brown, I-at large — is whether the school system followed proper protocol in reporting any alleged sexual misconduct or physical abuse.
In her letter, Rhee said the sexual allegations had been reported to D.C. police, and that the teacher was placed on leave immediately. Council members are awaiting confirmation from the police and the Child and Family Services Agency.
Charges of corporal punishment would not necessarily be a police matter, said Nathan Saunders, vice president of the Washington Teachers’ Union.
“It is not an assault, it is not battery, which are criminal issues,” Saunders said. “A teacher can be accused of corporal punishment for telling a kid to lay his head on his desk.”
Saunders said neither he nor union President George Parker had been made aware of the teacher accused of sexual misconduct.
Rhee said her comment in the magazine was made in the context of “explaining the importance of considering teacher performance, and not just seniority, in deciding which teachers would be let go during [firings] necessitated by a budget cut.”
At a press conference Tuesday, Barry, Thomas and Brown criticized Rhee for what they called a pattern of disrespect toward teachers.
“Particularly with black people, we’ve been disrespected too long,” Barry said. “We’re not going to take disrespect lying down, we’re going to fight to the end. And that’s why I want her to stay here, so she can suffer the consequences of her own actions. If she leaves, she’s gone, we can’t hold her accountable. I want to hold her accountable.”
