Fairfax County teachers won a court victory this week that grants them the right to challenge negative performance evaluations that can put them on track to be fired.
The ruling Wednesday from Circuit Court Judge Stanley Klein strikes down a practice by the school system to deny teachers the opportunity to contest the reports, which in some cases act as precursors to dismissal.
The Fairfax County Federation of Teachers had challenged the School Board in the fall, on behalf of a Mount Vernon Woods Elementary School teacher, on the grounds that the she was legally entitled to fight a negative evaluation through Virginia’s grievance procedure. She was on a course to be fired unfairly, said Mark Glaser, the federation’s president.
In Fairfax, new teachers are put on a probationary period before being offered a “continuing contract,” the state’s equivalent to tenure, after which they are periodically evaluated.
After each review, they can be re-appointed or given a “conditional” rating, which holds back a pay increase and gives them a year to improve or be let go, Glaser said. Wednesday’s ruling gives them the ability to challenge the conditional rating.
“It was our contention that because they were holding your salary, and that they were telling you that you were going to be dismissed soon, that you had the right to talk to the employer, because that’s what a grievance is,” Glaser said.
The school system has not, at least publicly, promised to alter its grievance procedure. Fairfax County Public Schools spokesman Paul Regnier said “we are looking at the possibility of changing our regulation.”
Regardless, the school system is compelled by the ruling “to allow what the regulations in Virginia state law require,” said Robert E. Paul, a lawyer with Washington law firm Zwerdling, Paul, Kahn & Wolly, who represented the Federation of Teachers.
