I received this email from a DC Teacher who was terminated from Sousa middle school where Dwan Jordan is a new principal. Sousa is located at 3650 Ely Place, SE in Washington, DC. I have removed the names of teachers who write me in order to protect their right to confidentiality.
Given that Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee signs off on all of these teacher terminations, it is concerning that there is no right of appeal. What if the principal was wrong in his/her assessment of the teacher and the teacher is not ineffective ? Who bears the responsibility for any errors that are being made ? What would you do if you were wrongly terminated ?
Here are some of the details regarding what happened to the teachers at Sousa. More details will be provided to you as they come in.
Hi Candi:
"I had been teaching at Sousa and never received a bad rating in all my ten years working in DC Public Schools. However, I was placed on the 90 day plan and have been terminated also. I was wondering if you could add this update of factual information to your blog.
The principal Dwan Jordon is a first-year principal, formerly an Assistant Principal from PG County, who placed 8 veteran teachers on the 90-day plan and terminated all of them. Interestingly enough, early reports are rumored that Sousa made some of the highest middle school gains with the DC-CAS, so how can all of our teachers be ineffective? Sousa has less than a total of 25 teachers so a third of them were terminated."
Posted by The Washington Teacher.
It may be summer vacation and the traffic on a teacher-oriented blog may slow down, but many of us continue to be interested in news about the terminations. Candi, keep posting all this information as you get it in, school by school. It looks like some schools had numerous terminations, including Ludlow-Taylor, Bell and now Souza MS. Are there any other schools out there?
ReplyDeleteAll of this information about teachers losing their jobs is making me nervous. I was hired in DCPS after working in another state for three years. Hope I didn't make a mistake by moving!!
ReplyDeleteYes, DCPS is a hard system but stay focused on your students and doing all you can to make them succeed, love learning and believing in themselves. If you need help, find colleagues you can trust and go to them. Principals tend to be very busy putting out fires and keeping their own jobs. So don't ask them for help. Don't call too much attention to yourself, just do your job and stay focused on your students and their learning. Expect a hard first year, but it gets better.
ReplyDeleteNewtoDCPS - whey did you decide to come here to teach?
ReplyDeleteWhat was the outcome of today's meeting with the Union - did anybody go???
ReplyDeleteComplete waste of time today. George Parker is such a loser.
ReplyDeleteMy husband wanted to move out there. So I followed him. I have loved teaching these last 3 years and I hope I could transfer that to DCPS. I'm just hoping my experience can help pull me through this first year. I'm excited because I think I have a lot to offer the kids.
ReplyDeleteNewtoDCPS: keep your eyes, mouth, and classroom door shut. You should be okay. Stay the hell away from the schools mentioned.
ReplyDelete