Re: SCDE Refuses to Talk with a SC teacher

Theodore A. Jones

Posted on 1/01/10

More | Report Post

Every teacher employed in a SC public school is under a contract.
Since they are under employment by a contract they are no longer
employed at the employer's willfulness to retain them. The
employer who employes by contract also concedes to the terms and
condition the contract specifies. However in dear ol'e SC things
are not that cut and dried. Teaching contracts in SC are an
ambiguous amalgamation of two sections of the SC code of law
that clandestinely allows the district that employes you to
retain the right of at will employment. But when SCDE finagled
the ADEPT teaching system into SC law it also codified a process
of dismissing a teacher that is specific to a law. If you go to
SCDE's web site and look at the ADEPT flow diagram. The process
is induction, evaluation, correction of problems, reevaluation.
According to the flow chart each comma in the previous sentence
represents a year of employment for a teacher. No SC school
district has the option of selecting any type of contract that is
not in compliance with the ADEPT dismissal process. If and when
a district at its discretion decides to use the ADEPT system to
rid its self of a teacher the required process is not less than
three terms of employment for a teacher. The ADEPT system by law
has limited SC school districts to these terms of employment of a
teacher. You people need to form representative bodies to make
sure that your contracts are specific to SC and federal law and
that they are stated this way. No SC school district employes a
SC classroom teacher at will and don't you forget it. On
12/22/09, Angie wrote:
> This may come as a shock to most teachers, but in any other
> profession no reason has to be given for a termination of
> employment. Everyone is an employee at will and SC is a state
> where the employer can terminate employment as they see fit.
> While it appears that the district used the guise of ADEPT to
> rid itself of unwanted employees, it is not illegal. I do not
> pretend to know the reasons, but I'm certain there are some.
> Take solace in the fact that for everything there is a reason
> and a purpose; there's no such thing as 'accidents.'
>
>
>
> On 12/10/09, Theodore A. Jones wrote:
>> A highly qualified SC math teacher learned the hard way
>> today that certain high officials in the ADEPT section of
>> SCDE are refusing to answer the hard questions about the
>> ADEPT evaluation system. The teacher in this report has
>> well over twenty years experience teaching and additional
>> experience as a senior research scientist in mathematic
>> assessment. This teacher was requested by a district and
>> taught AP math courses for a SC high school last year.
>> Obtained a 100% passing rate for all the students taught,
>> failed a formal ADEPT evaluation, and is now out of
>> teaching in any SC high school classroom. What you really
>> and truly need to understand about the reprehensible ADEPT
>> evaluation system is that it, can and is by design, be made
>> to have a predestinated outcome and there is not one thing
>> you can do about it. Another teacher formally "evaluated"
>> at the same time and by this the same "evaluation" crew
>> passed the first half. When the building principal realized
>> that this teacher was passing the second half he made the
>> "evaluators" re-score the first passing part into a
>> failure. Don't believe a single word SCDE plays on the
>> house organ about wanting to retain good, fair and honest
>> teachers. Nothing is further from the truth. You can get
>> the axe at any time on a mentally disturbed principal's
>> whim or an unjust sane one's too. The ADEPT system is a
>> tool designed to function against you no matter how good
>> you are or how hard you try. Watch your back teacher. The
>> teacher in this report did not have any idea what the ADEPT
>> evaluation system is. Was not trained to comply with it.
>> And not one of the teacher's colleagues lifted a finger to
>> give this teacher any help. But these colleagues all warm a
>> church pew on Sunday singing about how good they are to
>> God. I wonder what their evaluation will result in?

Posts on this thread, including this one