<p>Okay…so due to budget cuts, my school district will not be renewing some of the non-tenured teachers’ contracts. And my favorite teacher may be losing her job so I wrote a letter that I’m planning to send to all the people on the school board so that she won’t lose her job.</p>
<p>So would anyone like to read and give me feedback on the letter? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>And I posted on the Parents forum because I thought I’d get a better response.</p>
<p>The fact is, if they are reducing staff due to budget cuts, your letter won’t do any good. Layoffs are governed by union contract. It doesn’t matter how good the teacher is. It is also possible that the district is giving non-renewal notices now but plans on hiring many of the people back depending on enrollment and budgets. It is a very complicated process. Your letter, while well meaning, won’t have any impact at all. Sorry…</p>
<p>aww man…well I still think I’m going to send the letter anyway because only some of the non-tenured teachers will lose their jobs, and I want to make sure my teacher is not among them. Even if the letter might not make a difference, I want to do everything in my power to help. shennie thanks for the reality check though.</p>
<p>It’s great that you are trying to help out your teacher. Tell her that you want to help and maybe she can suggest who you can direct a letter to. Or just give her a letter she can use as a reference for future jobs. I’m sure she will really appreciate your efforts!</p>
<p>You never know the outcome of good actions. Write the letter addressed to the chair of your district’s school board, with copies to her principal and a copy to her. </p>
<p>She will treasure it. It is disheartening when these things happen. It could do some good perhaps but certainly will reassure her that she was a good teacher to you.</p>
<p>I’d be happy to read the letter if that’s what you are asking. PM it to me.
A lot of schools are pink slipping all non tenured teachers right now until they know what the enrollments and budgets will be. I don’t think the letter could hurt.</p>
<p>Go for it. In Law School, my favorite professor who cared about the students, got fired…I walked into the Dean’s office and protested his firing. He still got canned but the next thing I knew the Dean was my personal advisor. I never regretted speaking up for him and think about him to this day–hoping the layoff was not too bad on him and his family. Speaking up for deserving people is never a waste of time.</p>
<p>Hey I’ll read it too. PM me.</p>
<p>It is a very complicated process but every little step to supprt someone can go a long way.</p>
<p>I’d be happy to read it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses everyone. After talking to some of the people in my class, we might write a joint letter and have everyone sign it. So I am going to PM you guys both the letter from me and the letter I wrote for our whole class, because I think I’m going to send both. I really appreciate your help.</p>
<p>I don’t think it will do any good in your district- because if someone with more seniority wants her job, she can be bumped anyway. At least that is how it works in our district. In Sept they are still figuring out who to hire, and the newer teachers who were bumped in the spring, have gone to other districts who have their ^%$ together.
Its pretty sad, when in October, the district is desperate to hire back those they let go in June & they are long gone & then the district has to make do with substitutes because all the good teachers have been given longer term positions in other district ( sorry this is obviously a sore spot)</p>
<p>You could also try having it printed in teh school newspaper- or write a letter to the editor. Thats what I have done, didn’t do any good, but I made my voice heard.
However, it could help her find a job in another district.</p>
<p>I think it’s great that you’re writing this letter in support of your teacher. Even if it doesn’t result in anything changing in the end, it will certainly be rewarding for him/her to read it and perhaps it would be beneficial in a portfolio when it comes to finding a new position.</p>
<p>Not to split hairs here butI just wanted to add that while the end result is the same, your teacher is not being fired. Their position has been cut. I know bottom line they’re going to be out of a job, but their prospects of finding a new teaching position are much greater than if they had been fired. </p>
<p>Fired means that the teacher was removed for reasons that are very negative in nature.</p>
<p>By the way, if he/she is as good as you say they are have them contact me. Pm me for email address. The system I teach in hires numerous teachers each year. It’s not a bad system to work in at all, the problem is a teacher shortage in our area. (Maryland)</p>
<p>good point wharfrat2</p>
<p>At my daughters previous school, we had gone through several principals but many long term teachers who knew the ropes. What some of the more experienced principals have done, is similar to what my husbands work place sometimes does to retain union members that have less seniority than those that aren’t as skilled.
In the school, they might reconfigure the job description so that it doesn’t fit the senior teacher, or make it less than full time to make the job less attractive. Im not saying its right, but apparently the principals didn’t like to deal with the procedure to reassign senior teachers, so they would give them positions that were too much & hope they would quit.</p>
<p>The school board doesn’t usually have anything to do with hiring anyone but the superintendent- oh but that is another thing- you still could speak at a board meeting in support of new teachers- students in our district speak at board meetings all the time, it’s a good way to communicate on educational issues- well get them heard anyway.</p>
<p>In our school system we have a full-time student member on the Board of Education. The student is elected by the countywide SGA delegtes.</p>
<p>While the student member does not have voting rights they do have a voice and are allowed to weigh in on any matter before the board.</p>
<p>Many years ago, when I was in hs, we had the same situation. What we did was show up at the board meeting, even brought our parents, the meeting was to be at the board of ed, but b4 it even started that had to move it to a school because there were so many people. The meeting went on for hours because of everyone speaking. The board will take you more seriously in person and with your parents (remember your parents pay taxes, and in our city they vote the board members in)</p>
<p>In the end, they did lose their position because as stated before it is the job, not the teacher and seniority wins. This teacher was teaching a subject that they were cutting (humanities), thus he was the logical person to go. However, he got hired in another school district right away (next day) because our protest made the paper and another school district felt that if soo many people fought for him they wanted a teacher like that. He actually got pd more. The school might lose a great teacher, but it can still work out the best. To this day, 20 yrs later he is still in contact with the students that started the protest</p>