At last, movement!

It has been a busy week for APS.

APS firing process could begin next week | ajc.com
Educators accused of cheating in Atlanta Public Schools could be notified as soon as next week of the district's plans to fire them, Superintendent Erroll Davis said Friday.

About damned time.

A state investigation released in July accused 180 Atlanta educators of cheating; about 120 remain on the payroll at a cost of $600,000 a month to the city school district.
The report said cheating took place in 44 schools. More than 80 educators confessed. All of those named in the report were placed on paid administrative leave by the district, although many have chosen to resign or retire as months have passed with almost no action by APS.

Well, why hurry? APS seemed content to continue to pay them while they dithered.

Davis said the district is now ready to move forward because attorneys have access to the evidence needed to build a case against the accused. The Fulton County District Attorney's Office, which is conducting a criminal investigation, has agreed to let the district view evidence.

About damned time.

The district is under pressure to resolve the cases before May 15, the deadline for deciding whether to renew teaching contracts.

You mean you could just do nothing and let the accused educators go? Well, great! What's the problem?

Nonrenewal is tantamount to firing.

Huh? Not in any other industry, it's not.

Firing teachers is an expensive and complicated process that could take months to resolve. Teachers with three or more years of employment can only be fired for eight allowable reasons. The teacher can request a tribunal hearing to decide whether the charges are warranted. The decision can be appealed several times, up to the state Supreme Court.

What a sweetheart deal the educators have. (See previous post, specifically "90 educators have what is commonly termed tenure".)

But wait. If it's so damned difficult to fire a teacher with cause, and "failure to renew contract" is the same thing as "fire", then why were teachers so terrified under the previous regime that the SRT Directors (deputy superintendents), or their lackey principals*, would passively fire them by simply not renewing their contracts? Doesn't tenure (or "what is commonly termed tenure", which makes it sound like this isn't what would be called "tenure" in any other context) protect you from that, too?

Supporters of these protections say teachers need a shield against unwarranted accusations.

"Supporters" = teacher unions, I get that. But if these protections work so darned well against a new broom trying to sweep clean, why weren't these teachers equally well protected from the corruption of the previous administration?

There's an awful lot of story here that hasn't been explained yet.

* "Lackey principals" = principals who threaten to slash a test administrator's tires if they don't falsify CRCT scores. I don't think "lackey" is too strong a word. I'm told that isn't all of them, and I suppose that's probably true, but how can we know?