Texas Teacher Law

Why Teachers Should Market Themselves

Teaching is a relatively secure job, so why am I talking about marketing yourself?  Because marketing is all about building an image and recognition.  And to be even more specific, according to Seth Godin, a marketing guy whose blog I read because as a small business owner I know I have to do marketing, marketing is actually what other people are saying about you.  

And this point is critical for teachers. Marketing is what other people are saying about you.  And what other people say about you is what determines your reputation. And one day, your reputation may be the only thing standing between you and an angry student. 

I've said for many years that the best defense a teacher ever has against false allegations is their own reputation.  And reputation is really nothing more than what other people say, or think, about you. 

If there comes a day when a student or parent accuses you of some improper action, your reputation will be the most important thing you have to protect yourself.  If the accusation does not match the reputation you have among others, they will be slow to believe the accusation, and will give you the benefit of the doubt whenever there is uncertainty or ambiguity in the facts.  

On the other hand, if your reputation is not secure, allegations of improper conduct will be much easier for others to believe.   And even the mere appearance of impropriety - or the appearance of an opportunity for impropriety - is enough to open your reputation up to doubts.  

This is why teachers should always remember the difference between being a trusted professional and being a friend.  Why teachers should never be alone behind closed doors with a student. Why teachers should be careful not to "play favorites." And why teachers should notify an administrator or counselor immediately if a student shares intimate personal feelings or personal problems with the teacher. 

Never leave room for the appearance of impropriety.  Your reputation, and possibly your career, depends on it. 

Teachers CAN be Fired, Oprah

Oprah, you just let down the nation's schoolteachers.

I just happened to turn on the TV this afternoon when the Oprah show was on.  The topic today was some version of how terrible public schools are because bad teachers can't be fired and Unions only help good-for-nothings suck paychecks off the taxpayers. 

Okay, the whole show wasn't about that.  A lot of the show was about how much better off we'd all be if every public school was a charter school. 

I am going to stick to responding to the teacher termination issue, though.  One of the guests on the show for this portion of the "presentation" ( I can't call it a discussion since it was so very one-sided) was the chancellor of the Washington D.C. school system (the equivalent of Texas' superintendents), Michelle Rhee.  Although Oprah prefaced this section with a statement that she "loves" teachers and is not addressing "good" teachers, she goes on to nod energetically and make disbelieving faces as Rhee talks about how unions protect bad teachers and how it is so very, very difficult to terminate even the worst of teachers.  In nearly the same breath Rhee is lauded for terminating nearly 1000 teachers in the district.

 Seems to me she's not having any problems at all terminating teachers. 

I actually think Rhee is a great leader for the DC school system.  She is fearless in ending the status quo and raising the performance bar for everyone, including school administrators, who often escape scrutiny for poor leadership when politicians sit around lamenting the supposedly deplorable state of education. 

However, Rhee is just plain wrong about whether teachers should have strong protections. They are protections, not impediments. Rhee admits during the Oprah appearance that the rules were originally enacted for all the right reasons - so how can she fail to acknowledge that all those same reasons still exist?  The only difference is that now she's the administrator trying to take fast action without having to follow those very same rules.  

Teachers who are not doing their job well can be fired.  This is true in every state and the District of Columbia.  But they can't be fired without some fair notice and right to be heard in defense. And they can't be fired if the campus administrators never take action, which is the real reason that you will occasionally find teachers in the classroom who shouldn't be there. 

Oprah, shame on you for jumping on the business PR bandwagon of bashing the very fair employment rules that apply to most public schoolteachers.  Teachers must be treated fairly by their employers.  That is not an impediment to providing good public schools. The problems of troubled schools and districts cannot be solved by stripping teachers of fair employment rules.  But stripping teachers of fair employment rules can cause a lot of future troubles without even addressing the current ones.  

And that will be bad for education. 

If it's work related, it's probably not private

I had a fascinating discussion recently with educator and trainer Susan Fitzell about teachers' communications with and about students and parents.  She has written a great article with some very practical pointers on things to be cautious about.  You can check it out on the Teachers.net Gazette (and yes, I'm quoted in it!). 

When a Teacher Should Speak Up

Todays news includes a report that a teacher who witnessed an alleged beating of a student by a teacher and failed to report it has resigned. http://www.kvue.com/home/Charter-school-officials-Teacher-who-saw-coworker-beating-student-resigns-93942739.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The law is full of things we should not do - like beat up on 13 year old kids.  There are far fewer things that the law requires us to DO, but there are some.  The teacher who saw the incident should have reported what he saw.  Although there is no general duty for private citizens to report crimes that they witness, in this case there several reasons the teacher should have taken the initiative to report what he saw. 

1. Teachers have a duty to report suspected child abuse.  While not all physical altercations between students and teachers are child abuse, anything that appears to go beyond force needed to control the child should be reported. 

2. Teachers have a professional code of ethics which requires them to report ethical violations committed by other teachers.  The excessive use of physical force on a child is definitely an ethical violation. 

3. Most schools have either incorporated the teachers code of ethics into their policies or have adopted their own standards of conduct, which usually require employees to report suspected violations. 

4. Even without a specific employment policy requiring that certain things be reported, the school could easily allege that failure to report the incident constituted a serious lack of professional judgment, possibly serious enough to support a contract termination. 

Need TShirts?

If you need tshirts or other logo items for your school group, consider using this new shop - Possibili Tees.  Located on Staten Island in New York, this company is primarily an employment training program for young people with autism.  They work with several local schools to provide vocational education for the students while operating a professional, high-quality business. 

From their website:

"This is a very ambitious project and we hope that you will support our efforts. We believe that employment, as well as the socialization, is one of the most important aspects in a person’s growth. We promise to serve our customers with the highest levels of quality and professionalism. 

We thank you for your support and patronage. 

The Staff of Possibili Tees "

Your "Friends" May Be Everyone

The Wall Street Journal has an article today with yet more examples of why you need to think very carefully about what you do and say on the internet.  Social networking sites make keeping in touch with many far-flung friends easy and fun - but you might as well be standing on stage in front of all the TV networks at once with a microphone for all the privacy you can expect.  

When you talk to groups of people at once on social sites, you should expect that everyone, including your mother, your spouse and your boss, can see what you say.  There is little to no boundary between public and private on these sites.  And if you are not tech savvy enough to understand the privacy settings, then act as if you have no privacy at all. Say only what you would say if you knew that everyone in the world were listening.  

Kids and Sex and Teachers

First off, no this is not another post about staying away from your students.  It IS a post about a new study that has implications for your interactions with your students.  

The journal of Sexual Health, as reported by Salon.com, surveyed adults to determine how they define sex.  It turns out there is little concensus on what acts are included when you use the term "sex." It's fascinating and a little baffling, especially the 95% number (you'll have to read the article yourself to find out what 95% percent say - and what 5% DON'T).  

As the Salon article points out, the results are important because they have implications for how we talk about sex with each other and, in the case of educators, with students.  Teenagers in particular are already very good at being as literal as possible when you give them rules or instructions, so if you have reason to talk about sexual behavior with students, or anyone else for that matter, it's vitally important to know that we don't all share the same definition for the word "sex."

And in the interest of clarity, I'll just say that intimate contact between a teacher and student is always inappropriate and usually illegal, no matter what word you use to describe it. 

When the Teacher is the News

Last week I was riveted to the news for a while after the shooting at Deer Creek Middle School in Colorado, right down the street from Columbine. 

The news, while horrifying, had several bright spots, including the fact that only two people were shot and no one was killed. Another one was a story of teacher David Benke, hailed as a hero for tackling the gunman and probably preventing far worse consequences. 

The story of David Benke appeared in the LA TImes, on Fox News, at the Huffington Post, in the New York Times, on CBS, and pretty much every other news outlet in the country. 

While you probably read the stories and thought about what you would do if something like that happened in your own school, what you might not have thought about is what you would do if you found yourself in the middle of a big news story.   

If you are involved in a big news story, the press will call you.  If you are involved in a story with national interest, the national press will call - and they will keep calling.  You will get so many calls you will not be able to answer all of them and your voicemail box will fill up.  Then the press will track you down on Facebook, at your work email address, and if the story is big enough and you are important enough to it, they will track you down at your house.  They will want you to tell your story, to comment on the event, to say something interesting. 

And you will be totally unprepared, unless you take the time to prepare. So here are my best tips for dealing with the press:

1. Take a moment and decide whether you want to talk.  You are not obligated to talk to the press. 

2. Enlist the help of a friend or family member to field the phone calls and relay your message - either that don't want to comment or that you will comment and what your rules are.

3. If you do want to talk, remember that it is up to you who you talk to and how you do it.  You can do live, pre-recorded, phone only, or stick to print media. You can also release one statement to all the media outlets at once. It is up to you.  Just because you talk to one, does not mean you have to talk to everyone. 

4. Before you open your mouth, decide what you want to say.  If you are not clear on what you want to say before you start, you risk saying something you didn't mean to say, or worse, saying something that is misunderstood. 

How to Save Your Contract - Term

If you are a teacher in Texas and you are worried about your contract being non-renewed, there are some things you can do to help yourself, and possibly head off the non-renewal. 

If you have a non-probationary term contract, the district has to show cause why your contract should be non-renewed, and the district has to have evidence to back up that reason.  Further, the district has to show that their reason exists at the time of the proposed nonrenewal, not merely at some time in the past.  So, for example, if you had a record of being tardy 3 days out of 5 last year, but had been on time every single day this year, the district could probably not use tardiness as a reason to non-renew you contract. 

So, if you think your contract is in trouble, here's what you need to do:

Respond to everything you get in writing, explaining how you will correct the situation (or why there was a misunderstanding and you were doing the right thing all along) and then follow through.  Write a followup note saying that the correction has been made. 

Make sure the principal knows all the good things you've done and that parents have praised you.  Put these things in writing.  If you have an oral conversation with the principal, do a followup note summarizing the conversation. 

If you have a growth plan, get it completed and send the principal a report on everything you do. If there is something in the PGP you can't get completed, send a note recording the steps you took to try and do it, and what kept you from getting it done (no seminars on the topic scheduled, team leader was invited to your class to observe but never made it, etc).

The point here is to create a record of how you have attempted to meet all the expectations placed on you. If you do this, one of two things might happen.  The first and best thing is that the principal might get information he/she would otherwise have missed that will cause the threat of non-renewal to evaporate.  

The second is that if you get a proposed non-renewal, you may have the evidence to show the reason for the proposal is either non-existent or no longer exists because you corrected the concern. 

If you need help, contact your teacher association or me. 

How to Save Your Contract - Probationary

If you are a teacher in Texas and you are worried about your contract being non-renewed, there are some things you can do to help yourself, and possibly head off the non-renewal. 

If you have a probationary contract, your goal is to determine why, even though no one has to tell you why.  But you usually know anyway, so here's the rundown:

If you're in danger of non-renewal because . . .  

1.  . . . you and the principal don't get along, then make an honest assessment of why. If it's just the wrong fit, then start looking for transfer options.  If the two of you are somehow out of synch and you could fix this by adjusting something you are doing, then sit down with the principal and have a conversation.  

2. . . . a teaching position has to be cut from the campus, then you just need to start preparing for the job hunt. 

3. . . . your principal is iffy about your performance, then you need to make sure you let the principal know you can successfully address his/her concerns, AND that you WILL address his/her concerns.  Then do it and make sure the principal gets a note or a visit from you about what you've done. 

Because the non-renewal of a probationary contract does not have to be backed up by evidence of poor performance, you will only be able to save a non-renewal of a probationary contract if you are attentive to the principal's concerns, charming, and a hard worker that demonstrates a willingness to adapt.  

The exception to the above is that it is still illegal to non-renew a probationary contract on the basis of age, race, ethnicity, disability, and a few other things.  But it will be up to you to show that is the reason for the non-renewal, so pay attention and keep documentation of events and comments if you think that is going on.