No, No, No. WRONG.

This whole issue stems from a school and district administration that failed to follow through on parent complaints over an extended period of time until the whole thing spiralled out of control. If principals and superintendents were doing their job, the teacher would be kept in line--or she would quit on her own from the pressure of the administration. HOW DID THIS BECOME AN ISSUE OF TENURE? THIS IS AN ISSUE OF MIS- OR COMPLETELY NON_EXISTENT MANAGEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just keep beating up on the teachers as usual.

Teaching has become an unbelievably difficult job. Teachers are not respected by parents (who think that our job is not over until we fall asleep), students (quite a few of whom are rude, disruptive, and disrespectful to fellow students and classmates as well as to their teachers and sometimes even the principal) and often even our own administrators (who don't think that our requests for support warrants their time). We apparently don't deserve tenure and should work our contract hours and then continue to work well into the evening to go home and then grade papers and make phone calls to parents of the children who couldn't be bothered to do the days' assignments and all for a salary that won't support even a family of two. Please take away our benefits - we don't deserve them, and please continue to berate us - that we need. Encourage your child to be creative with the stories of what went on in the classroom (and by all means, don't call or make an appointment to meet with the teacher to verify any of these stories). Come on folks!!

Teachers are people who love and encourage your children to do their best at all times. We try to make learning exciting and fun so that your child will enjoy school and the learning that takes place during their time there. We strive to mold your children into lifelong learners and show them what a good education can do for them and their futures as adults. We are also human, we have feelings, we have good days and bad days and even days when we don't feel well and yet go into work because it is too difficult to write lesson plans for a sub to follow. We love watching your children when that ah-ha moment happens. Please do for us what we do for your children - treat us as individuals. Yes, we make mistakes, but does that mean that all teachers should be put on notice and watched like a hawk? Most of us have an open door policy, come in and volunteer or just sit for a while. Yes, education has changed considerably in the past few years, let's work together to make it the best experience your child can have every day.

Why not write an editorial slamming administrators. The public might find it hard to believe that they two are protected by tenure and it will be the first thing they pull out when threatened. All adminstrators in MV district if threatened with being fired have a built in right to go back to the classroom and to bump a new teacher out of a job. It's the fox guarding the hen house. And let's not forget that everytime the teacher's union wins a pitance of a raise after hard fought negotiations, the administrators are given the exact percentage raise by default as written into their contracts.

I seriously wonder if this paper just takes whatever the district office feeds them at face value as the truth.

I agree with Ned above. The root cause of the problem with the teacher from Huff was that the principal and administration was asleep at the job. THESE ARE THE ONES THAT SHOULD BE FORCED OUT OF THEIR JOBS AND BACK INTO TEACHING. LET'S SEE HOW LONG THEY WOULD LAST! And let's not forget that the superintendent has never even taught elementary school--other principals in the district have never even taught to begin with, and yet others have come in from school districts that have failed. Yes, this is progess.

Always attacking the teachers. It's been 3-4 weeks running now. Has this paper ever written anything critical of the school administration? As pointed out above, they get tenure as well, but no one is crying foul over that.

I still think that the district would have done something long ago if it were easy. Who wants years of complaints by parents? Wouldn't it have been easier to terminate the teacher than go through this? So what I can't understand is what the motivation would be for the administrators to "mismanage" the situation for so long. I see no benefit to them at all, only a downside.

When this story broke the first time, I said to the superintendent "I don't ever want to see it get to this level again, where complaints about a teacher are played out on the front page of the local newspaper."

Said that I would hope that these personnel problems could be resolved BEFORE parents get so frustrated that they feel they have to call the newspaper as a last resort, to get some action.

The reply? Without hesitation, the superintendent said...

"Oh it will (happen again). This happens in every district...." followed by reference to an incident in another district (during employment prior to coming to MV) about a teacher who was accused of molestation.

This was NOT the answer I wanted to hear.

"We can't comment about personnel issues" does not inspire my confidence in claims of honesty, integrity and transparency.

We need to demand more from the school district during these hard times. Now is not the time to accept the "business as usual" approach. It is time to start looking at the performance of the district adminisitrators.

It will happen again the way these administrators run the district. And then they'll be the ones hding behind their tenure IF the board decides to do their job and start holding these people accountable for performance.