Chicago+Students+Protest+Teacher+Firings

=Teacher Firings, Student Protest Cap School’s Tumultuous Year=

= = =by [|MERIBAH KNIGHT]= =//Published by the Huffington Post//= =//May 20, 2011//=

= = =After discovering last week that nearly a quarter of their teachers were being dismissed, Austin Polytechnical Academy students decided to take extreme action. Holding secret planning sessions under the guise of a robotics team meeting, they plotted.= =First, they gathered signatures of more than half the student body on a petition demanding that the decision be reversed. Then on Monday, at 9 a.m. sharp, despite threats of suspension from school, more than a hundred of the school’s 358 students walked out of their classes and into the street.= =Chanting “Save our Teachers,” the students circled the school at 231 N. Pine Ave. on the far West Side. Police and security guards managed the crowd.= =The firings, student walkout, and a flurry of union grievances that are in the works follow a year of abrupt fits and starts at Austin Polytech. In October, Chicago Public Schools officials placed the school on academic probation. In February, students learned the interim principal was leaving at year’s end. In March, CPS backed off a hasty plan to merge Austin with another school after a community uproar.= =Now, seven of their 30 teachers are being dismissed in May. And the interim principal who made the decision, Fabby Williams, gave five of them the school district’s controversial “do not hire” designation that bans them from future employment with CPS.= =Repeated calls and emails to Williams over the past eight months were not returned. The [|Chicago News Cooperative has visited Austin Polytech numerous times this school year], but before the protests Monday, Williams demanded that a reporter leave the school.= =Asked about events at Austin, Frank Shuftan, a CPS spokesman, said, “The non-renewal of probationary appointed teachers is done annually and is based on the professional judgment of principals and the needs of individual schools.”= =The contretemps at Polytech, while extreme, are an example of larger obstacles within the district. As CPS tries to cope with limited resources by closing or consolidating schools, replacing principals, and dismissing teachers—often despite generally positive observations of their classroom performance—tensions are mounting. They could peak at the end of May, when the district is required to inform teachers whose contracts will not be renewed. **//[|(Read more about the CPS teacher evaluation and termination process.)]//**= =According to teachers, students and parents, the walkout at Austin Polytech was more than a simple reaction to the dismissals. The student demonstration, and a sit-in that followed Thursday morning, also reflected a perception that Williams and his school administration are unresponsive to the interests of teachers and students.= =In interviews with 17 Polytech teachers, nearly two-thirds of the teaching staff, each cited poor communication by the administration with staff and students, a lack of access to professional development, inconsistent disciplinary measures and a general feeling of having no voice in administrative decisions.= =“Accessibility, transparency and communicating about what is really happening—I don’t think it was there,” said LaTanya Lambert, a tenured teacher at the school.= =Perhaps the biggest issue, say students and faculty, is the school’s almost constant changes in leadership. In September, after a principal resigned, an interim principal, new assistant principal and dean were brought in, overhauling the administration. The sense of turbulence intensified when faculty learned in February that Williams, too, would leave at year’s end.= =“We don’t blame the teachers. We blame the administration. We’re without a voice,” said Cuauhtemoc Mendoza, 16, a junior who co-organized the protest. In a meeting with teachers and students last Wednesday, Mendoza and others described the administration as authoritarian.= =Teachers said Williams almost never attended school assemblies, sporting events and Local School Council meetings. “I am the only Hispanic student in this school,” Mendoza said. “And I don’t think he even knows my name.”= =Grievances filed against administration by teachers, including one teacher’s written and verbal requests to discuss his progress with the principal, went unanswered, teachers said.= =Students and teachers said they are baffled as to why Williams, on his way out, would act so drastically by dismissing seven teachers and in turn placing five of them under the district’s do-not-hire designation.= =Williams worked most of the year without a permanent administrative credential from CPS. Documents show he did not receive his credential until March 14, nearly seven months after the school year began. Williams’s interim status, and the fact that his credentials were not granted until shortly before he dismissed teachers, make his actions all the more bewildering, teachers say.= =“So here we have someone who is a temporary administrator making a permanent decision on somebody’s career,” said John Kugler, the school’s union representative.= =Over the past year the do-not-hire “list” has been a point of contention between teachers and the district. This is largely attributable to the lack of transparency: Teachers labeled un-employable by the system only found out when they applied for other CPS jobs and ultimately were rejected. After negotiations between the union and CPS, this year’s letters of non-renewal must now indicate the person’s ineligibility for re-employment by CPS.= =“We’re depending on one person’s eyes and ears to determine the permanent fate of someone’s career,” said Lillian Kass, a teacher and union delegate. Kass’ contract has been renewed.= =Evaluation documents reviewed by the Chicago News Cooperative for five of the seven teachers dismissed show that each teacher was observed once by Williams, and again by the assistant principal, Tonya Hammaker. According to past evaluations, at least four of the seven dismissed teachers had received “excellent” ratings on their evaluations the previous year.= =Kugler said Williams’ decision to fire teachers led the union to file 15 grievances contesting the evaluations. Kugler expects this number to nearly double as he files more grievances in the coming week.= =Nearly all the teachers interviewed independently commented on a lack of professional development. According to teachers, staff meetings have been few and far between.= =Meeting minutes from Polytech’s monthly Local School Council meetings show that Williams has attended only one meeting since September, while assistant principal Hammaker attended three. Local School Councils, required at every Chicago public school, include the principal, assistant principal, teachers, parents and community members.= =“The climate of the school has changed. We don’t sit down as a staff on a regular basis like we used to. We really stopped collaborating as a group of educators,” said Allison Bates, a third year teacher of environmental science who, in addition to her contract not being renewed, was given CPS’s do-not-hire designation. Last year Bates received an “excellent” rating on her evaluation. This year she received “unsatisfactory.”= =On Wednesday, citing a pending investigation, Williams had Bates physically removed from the school. Bates said CPS has charged her with organizing the walkout, which she denied.= =To replace many long-time staff, Williams has turned to Teach for America, a move criticized by some because it will bring inexperienced teachers with no long-term plans to stay at the school. Recruiting promising college graduates from top schools around the country, Teach For America staff commit to two years of teaching. Many say a downfall of the program, which counts President Barack Obama among its supporters, is the short-term nature of its placements. A Teach For America spokesperson confirmed that in March, before the dismissals, Polytech had extended offers to four of their staff.= =“It is not as easy as firing seven people and hiring seven people to come in,” said Steve McIlrath, Polytech’s tenured math teacher. “If you throw a transition right on top of a transition on top of a transition, instability becomes the norm.”= =One sign of instability is the sort of protest that broke out Monday morning. Austin students marched around the school wearing t-shirts and carrying signs with the dismissed teachers’ names painted on them, their chants growing louder as they circled the building. Above them, Polytech students who had stayed in their classrooms hung their heads out of windows, joining in the shouts.= =“We’re doing this for the teachers and for us, because they’re our teachers. That’s what we do when someone tries to break up our family,” said Mendoza, who the day before had posted a quote from famed union organizer Cesar Chavez on the “Save Austin’s Teachers” Facebook page, which had 53 members Thursday.= =As Mendoza led the students, his parents watched on from the sidewalk with a mixture of worry and pride. “They have freedom of expression for their rights,” said Hortencia Mendoza, 53. “But I worry they will arrest him.”= =As the students came back around to the front of the building, Williams came outside.= =“Listen up, listen up, students,” Williams said through a megaphone. He announced that if students went back into the school’s large auditorium, and then to their classes in an orderly fashion, they would not be suspended.= =“If we go into the auditorium are you going to listen to us and have a conversation?” shouted Cheyenne Sims, 18, over the noise of the crowd.= =“No, I am not doing that,” Williams said.= =Eventually Williams spoke with three students and agreed to meet with them on Monday. But such a meeting would come three days after Friday’s CPS deadline to inform teachers whose contracts will not be renewed. After leading Thursday’s sit-in, Sims and Mendoza and several other students were suspended for five days, according to an administration email to teachers.= == == == == == == == == == == = = = = =This article is part 5 of 5 in the series [|Learning Tools: A Look Inside Austin Polytechnical Academy]= = =
 * =[|Learning Tools: A Look Inside Austin Polytechnical Academy]=
 * =[|A New View of Tech School And a Drive to Succeed]=
 * =[|Austin Schools Are Merged, Then Unmerged]=
 * =[|Inside the Public School Probation Maze]=
 * =Teacher Firings, Student Protest Cap School’s Tumultuous Year=

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