Principal RED Flags---

[Anonymous]

If 1/3 of all employees transfer school every year wouldn't that be a red flag? Non Title 1 Elementary school. Principal came in 2020-2021 SY, after that teachers started transferring.

[Anonymous]

Either there is something wrong with the principal OR the principal is getting rid of bad teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If 1/3 of all employees transfer school every year wouldn't that be a red flag? Non Title 1 Elementary school. Principal came in 2020-2021 SY, after that teachers started transferring.

Yes. It is a red flag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Either there is something wrong with the principal OR the principal is getting rid of bad teachers.

There’s not been one example in FCPS of a principal terminating 1/3 of its teaching staff. In this case, it’s the principal and/or the school environment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Either there is something wrong with the principal OR the principal is getting rid of bad teachers.

With the difficulty schools have hiring teachers right now no principal is going to purposely get rid of a a third of their staff. Additionally, there is no way they would be able to have cause to do this.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it's a huge red flag. I taught at a middle school in FCPS that lost 90% of its staff (myself included) within 2 years after they hired a new principal. Central office didn't care, regardless of how many staff members submitted formal complaints. It is that difficult to find people qualified to be principals, I guess.

Finally she was caught doing blatantly illegal things and was fired, but it was almost 8 years before that happened. The school still hasn't recovered.

[Anonymous]

Principals cannot get rid of staff. The only way a principal could even do this is by destaffing if there’s a change in enrollment and staffing needs but that is never 30% of the staff and not every year for 3 years. Principals don’t decide if we stay at a school or not so if that many are leaving, it’s by choice and yes it is a huge red flag. It’s been the case in my school and I can tell you it’s due to the culture shift of the principal who came in a few years ago.

[Anonymous]

Principals can absolutely recommend non-renewing a teacher’s contract as long as there is appropriate documentation to support the decision. That’s a good thing given the fact that some teachers aren’t effective and/or do something immoral, unprofessional, and/or unlawful. Here is the Board Policy describing Just Cause for dismissal: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/8KNHE54811F8/$file/R4293.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Principals can absolutely recommend non-renewing a teacher’s contract as long as there is appropriate documentation to support the decision. That’s a good thing given the fact that some teachers aren’t effective and/or do something immoral, unprofessional, and/or unlawful. Here is the Board Policy describing Just Cause for dismissal: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/8KNHE54811F8/$file/R4293.pdf

And that doesn’t happen very often. In my 25 years of teaching, I’ve witnessed 2-3 teachers being put on a performance plan. They either improved or quit. No one was ever fired, it’s too harmful to document being fired on their next application. Every profession has a Just Cause for Dismissal provision in the employment contract. It’s not unique to FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principals can absolutely recommend non-renewing a teacher’s contract as long as there is appropriate documentation to support the decision. That’s a good thing given the fact that some teachers aren’t effective and/or do something immoral, unprofessional, and/or unlawful. Here is the Board Policy describing Just Cause for dismissal: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/8KNHE54811F8/$file/R4293.pdf

And that doesn’t happen very often. In my 25 years of teaching, I’ve witnessed 2-3 teachers being put on a performance plan. They either improved or quit. No one was ever fired, it’s too harmful to document being fired on their next application. Every profession has a Just Cause for Dismissal provision in the employment contract. It’s not unique to FCPS.

How, pray tell, would you know if anyone was put on a performance plan? It’s not something that the teacher or the principal would advertise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principals can absolutely recommend non-renewing a teacher’s contract as long as there is appropriate documentation to support the decision. That’s a good thing given the fact that some teachers aren’t effective and/or do something immoral, unprofessional, and/or unlawful. Here is the Board Policy describing Just Cause for dismissal: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/8KNHE54811F8/$file/R4293.pdf

And that doesn’t happen very often. In my 25 years of teaching, I’ve witnessed 2-3 teachers being put on a performance plan. They either improved or quit. No one was ever fired, it’s too harmful to document being fired on their next application. Every profession has a Just Cause for Dismissal provision in the employment contract. It’s not unique to FCPS.

How, pray tell, would you know if anyone was put on a performance plan? It’s not something that the teacher or the principal would advertise.

Maybe you wouldn’t, but they did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principals can absolutely recommend non-renewing a teacher’s contract as long as there is appropriate documentation to support the decision. That’s a good thing given the fact that some teachers aren’t effective and/or do something immoral, unprofessional, and/or unlawful. Here is the Board Policy describing Just Cause for dismissal: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/8KNHE54811F8/$file/R4293.pdf

And that doesn’t happen very often. In my 25 years of teaching, I’ve witnessed 2-3 teachers being put on a performance plan. They either improved or quit. No one was ever fired, it’s too harmful to document being fired on their next application. Every profession has a Just Cause for Dismissal provision in the employment contract. It’s not unique to FCPS.

How, pray tell, would you know if anyone was put on a performance plan? It’s not something that the teacher or the principal would advertise.

Uh, we know because they are in our department and we work with them. They start working with an instructional coach and usually the other teachers have to pull extra weight for them because they suck that bad. But the PP is right. They either improve and stay or don’t improve and stay or quit. They don’t actually get fired, no matter how bad they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principals can absolutely recommend non-renewing a teacher’s contract as long as there is appropriate documentation to support the decision. That’s a good thing given the fact that some teachers aren’t effective and/or do something immoral, unprofessional, and/or unlawful. Here is the Board Policy describing Just Cause for dismissal: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/8KNHE54811F8/$file/R4293.pdf

And that doesn’t happen very often. In my 25 years of teaching, I’ve witnessed 2-3 teachers being put on a performance plan. They either improved or quit. No one was ever fired, it’s too harmful to document being fired on their next application. Every profession has a Just Cause for Dismissal provision in the employment contract. It’s not unique to FCPS.

How, pray tell, would you know if anyone was put on a performance plan? It’s not something that the teacher or the principal would advertise.

Uh, we know because they are in our department and we work with them. They start working with an instructional coach and usually the other teachers have to pull extra weight for them because they suck that bad. But the PP is right. They either improve and stay or don’t improve and stay or quit. They don’t actually get fired, no matter how bad they are.

I am a principal. Very, very few teachers actually get fired for poor teaching because they get counseled out by HR to resign. That is a much cleaner process for everyone. When I was an AP, we had a teacher that we moved to “do not reappoint.” He was awful. HR was working with him to resign, and he wasn’t. He wasn’t arguing that the evaluation was wrong. He just wasn’t getting it. This was years ago, but I remember the HR person saying that she had never had a person NOT resign. It was literally the last minute, right before the Board of Ed (who does the actual dismissal) was meeting that he resigned.

[Anonymous]

Yes, that kind of turnover means the principal sucks. If people retire, that is one thing, or move away, but if too many teachers transfer to another, that’s a huge red flag.

When people are on a performance improvement plan, you can tell, because they have mentors from outside the building coming in all the time.

I’ve seen and been at schools where principals forced people out and it was not fair at all. It’s like the zero in on people for some reason and they have no chance of succeeding. In almost every case, over my many years, it was a principal problem, while teachers who should have been counseled out were left alone. It’s astonishing how much power principals have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principals can absolutely recommend non-renewing a teacher’s contract as long as there is appropriate documentation to support the decision. That’s a good thing given the fact that some teachers aren’t effective and/or do something immoral, unprofessional, and/or unlawful. Here is the Board Policy describing Just Cause for dismissal: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/8KNHE54811F8/$file/R4293.pdf

And that doesn’t happen very often. In my 25 years of teaching, I’ve witnessed 2-3 teachers being put on a performance plan. They either improved or quit. No one was ever fired, it’s too harmful to document being fired on their next application. Every profession has a Just Cause for Dismissal provision in the employment contract. It’s not unique to FCPS.

How, pray tell, would you know if anyone was put on a performance plan? It’s not something that the teacher or the principal would advertise.

No the PP but work in a school....trust me everyone finds out like a bad game of telephone.