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21 October 2004: Review of Tenure (2 of 4)
Well, as you can imagine, I (along with two colleagues in the same boat) decided to pursue the issue with the upper echelons of district administration. After numerous meetings and phone calls (notice this does not say observations! I was fired without the principal or any district administrator even watching me teach!), the superintendent managed to arrange a meeting where my principal listed among the reasons for my dismissal the fact that I had used five out of my contracted ten sick days. She also maintained that she had nothing to do with my non-re-election. I continued to fight through my union, and at the end of the battle, I won one single concession: the district would accept my resignation in place of termination. This district, that suffers a chronic teacher shortage because of the poor conditions, was going to force me to quit the job of my dreams. Well, you say, what do you expect? From a district so poorly managed, doesn’t it make sense that “it’s the brightest, the risk-taking teachers who are most at risk for arbitrary dismissal,” as the AP article claims?
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