Hey, remember how D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee fired 77 teachers in 2008? And remember last month, when an arbitrator said those teachers were improperly fired, and he reinstated them and gave them backpay? And when D.C. Public Schools said it would appeal the decision?
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Round 4.
The Washington Teachers’ Union is hosting some of the terminated teachers at its K Street HQ Thursday evening. Think dinner, and some good ‘ol fashioned reminiscing about that time they got mass-canned from D.C. Public Schools.
“It’s important to address the myth of ‘bad teachers’ being part of this group,” union President Nathan Saunders said. “One teacher was a Teacher of the Year and others made noteworthy contributions to their school community. These teachers were denied their fundamental right to due process when they were arbitrarily and capriciously terminated by DCPS.”
Now, Arbitrator Charles Feigenbaum didn’t overturn the firings on the basis of why these teachers were fired, but on the how: DCPS went off of principals’ recommendations, without telling teachers what these principals said and without giving them a chance to fight the charges.
According to the principals, one teacher played religious gospel music in his classroom and told his students to go to “H-E-L-L.” Another teacher went missing for weeks. Yet another sent e-mails rebuking the school’s leadership to their entire staff.
Now we’ll get a chance to hear from some of the teachers, who neither the WTU nor DCPS were able to produce immediately following Feigenbaum’s ruling. But if you were offering this reporter $100,000 for two years off, I’d probably turn up too.
