What is the process to remove a DCPS teacher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS is full of teachers who are dreadful. Some barely show up and others do the absolute minimum. For all our years at DCPS, we along with many other parents have collectively written letters documenting some outrageously horrid teachers. We've supplied several years of test scores that show this teachers students are going nowhere. Letters were sent to the Principal, her boss and many " higher-ups" in the system including the Chancelor and Mayor.

Every single one of these teachers is still teaching (some, many years later). Everyone knows how lousy these teachers are but they are never removed. Some years our kids have gotten great teachers and other years, the burden has fallen completely on our shoulders when our kids have literally learned zero during the day.

Must be nice getting Tenure after 2 years.

Pitiful.

There is no tenure in DCPS

Great starting point. Now, if teachers could simply be promoted, retained or fired at will, based on performance, like in most other fields in today's society, perhaps teaching would become the respected profession it deserves to be.

Gosh, I worked at a charter school for a short time where all the teachers could be fired at will. The place was like a revolving door. Very high absentee rate, teachers quitting in the middle of the school year, huge turnover in staff, and the quality of educational opportunity was marginal. And pray tell me which professions promote and fire based on performance? How often are you evaluated on your job? And how many people are fired each year from your place of work based on performance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS is full of teachers who are dreadful. Some barely show up and others do the absolute minimum. For all our years at DCPS, we along with many other parents have collectively written letters documenting some outrageously horrid teachers. We've supplied several years of test scores that show this teachers students are going nowhere. Letters were sent to the Principal, her boss and many " higher-ups" in the system including the Chancelor and Mayor.

Every single one of these teachers is still teaching (some, many years later). Everyone knows how lousy these teachers are but they are never removed. Some years our kids have gotten great teachers and other years, the burden has fallen completely on our shoulders when our kids have literally learned zero during the day.

Must be nice getting Tenure after 2 years.

Pitiful.

Was this before or after IMPACT was implemented. If it was after IMPACT, then it appears that DCPS is retaining terrible teachers while possibly firing good ones, which is the opposite of what it was supposed to do

[Anonymous]

The misinformation on this post is incredible. Again if the teacher is terrible blame the administration for keeping them in the post. Teachers do not get tenure after 2 years (bogus), there are not group 1 and 2 students (bogus), teachers still get evaluated regardless of the number of students in the classroom. And yes, the principal should not be sharing personnel information about this teacher, doing nothing, then lamenting that she is a terrible teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS is full of teachers who are dreadful. Some barely show up and others do the absolute minimum. For all our years at DCPS, we along with many other parents have collectively written letters documenting some outrageously horrid teachers. We've supplied several years of test scores that show this teachers students are going nowhere. Letters were sent to the Principal, her boss and many " higher-ups" in the system including the Chancelor and Mayor.

Every single one of these teachers is still teaching (some, many years later). Everyone knows how lousy these teachers are but they are never removed. Some years our kids have gotten great teachers and other years, the burden has fallen completely on our shoulders when our kids have literally learned zero during the day.

Must be nice getting Tenure after 2 years.

Pitiful.

Sounds like a time warp from the days before IMPACT. Now it's simple for principals to get rid of teachers they don't want

Let's not forget the reform of the past five years that has rid DCPS of at least half of its teachers, through firings for poor performance, excessing and resignations.

After all that, you're still not satisfied with DCPS? Sounds like reform isn't working.

But the schools in upper NW are still doing fine - as ever.

[Anonymous]

Classroom teachers, who have below the minimum number of students, will be reassigned to Group 2 status. Teachers are either Group 1 or Group 2. Not students. Group 2 teachers (like specials teachers) do not have "Individual Valued Added" as part of their Impact performance.

So, if a bad teacher goes from Group 1 to Group 2 because the number of students in their classroom declined over the course of the school year, the student scores from that class will not count against the teacher.

In this situation it is much harder to get rid of the teacher.

Am I not making sense?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Classroom teachers, who have below the minimum number of students, will be reassigned to Group 2 status. Teachers are either Group 1 or Group 2. Not students. Group 2 teachers (like specials teachers) do not have "Individual Valued Added" as part of their Impact performance.

So, if a bad teacher goes from Group 1 to Group 2 because the number of students in their classroom declined over the course of the school year, the student scores from that class will not count against the teacher.

In this situation it is much harder to get rid of the teacher.

Am I not making sense?

It's unclear what you're suggesting here - that you would prefer that the district be able to use test scores to score teachers even if they don't have enough data (hence the minimum number of students) to make an accurate assessment (not even considering that value-added data test score data has proven to be unreliable)? Or that you want the teacher to be able to be fired because she is perceived to be terrible? If she is actually terrible, and the principal knows this, then the principal must know this from observing the teacher's teaching and/or other professional behaviors, in which case, those things would be documented as part of IMPACT and the teacher could be dismissed. In fact, that may even make it easier than if the teacher was in Group 1 because the test data is largely so unreliable that the students could randomly do well enough to help the teacher keep her job.

[Anonymous]

OP still hasn't told us what was so awful about this teacher.

[Anonymous]

No you are not making sense and I don't believe your story. I'm a teacher and your information is still incorrect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Classroom teachers, who have below the minimum number of students, will be reassigned to Group 2 status. Teachers are either Group 1 or Group 2. Not students. Group 2 teachers (like specials teachers) do not have "Individual Valued Added" as part of their Impact performance.

So, if a bad teacher goes from Group 1 to Group 2 because the number of students in their classroom declined over the course of the school year, the student scores from that class will not count against the teacher.

In this situation it is much harder to get rid of the teacher.

Am I not making sense?

If she is really a bad teacher, her TLF scores will be low.

[Anonymous]

It's never been easier to get rid of a teacher, good or bad.

That's the one thing that "reform" has "improved."

Meanwhile, the scores have gone down, the achievement gap has widened and parents are fleeing to charter schools.

[Anonymous]

The response made sense to me (as a DCPS teacher). If a teacher in a testing grade doesn't have a certain number of students on their roster, they are moved from "Group 1" (value added) to "Group 2". Student achievement is still part of a Group 2 teacher's score, but a MUCH lower percentage of the overall score (10% is "TAS" which is non-DCCAS assessments and 5% is based on the overall school test score growth).

But it doesn't make sense to say it's "much harder" to get rid of a Group 2 teacher, it's actually just as easy if not easier. TLF scores are directly driven by the principal's observations and is what makes up the majority of a Group 2 teacher's total score. If the principal does in fact feel that this teacher is a "colossal failure", surely the TLF scores would reflect that....