OK, I know this flowchart is old, but it is always important to go back to effective reminders of the inadequacy of our broken system.  The only ammendment, or challenge, I’d make to this contortionist-like system of firing a tenured teacher is this: it’s still the administrator’s job to muck through the bog of steps, to brave the system in all its time-sucking irrationalities, and fire the damn teacher.  
 

Frankly, as convoluted as that flow-chart is, it’s nothing compared to the flowchart of How to Get a Child Classified as Special Ed.  It’s also a brief blink in time compared to How to Get a Dangerously Psycho Stalking-the-Pretty-Teacher Kid relocated to another teacher’s classroom.  

The bottom line is this, the system is long and drawn out, but when we’re dealing with someone’s job, it should be.  We shouldn’t make it easy to lose a long-standing teacher that the principal-of-the-month decides doesn’t jive with his or her philosophies.  So the process I happen to support.   

But it still can’t discourage an adminisrator from doing his or her job and firing a teacher whose stats don’t add up to student success.  I’ve seen it countless times, the paper trail is not begun and the pipes not laid, to justify helping a bad teacher to, shall we say, “move on.”  That is not tenure’s fault.  It is not even the teacher’s fault.  It is the administrator’s.

And as for protection as a teacher?  Consider two of my rules, #6 and #8 ,from my Top 10 List How to Get the Most Out of Teaching:

Rule #6 – Teach with your Door Open.  If you teach with transparency you, as a teacher, are far more trusted and, frankly, more relaxed in the classroom.  This translates to better classroom management, less stressful teaching, and a more honest relationship with your administrator.  

Rule #8 – Take a Class in Public Relations.  Learn how to pitch your programs.  Learn how to write a press release.  Administrators like good press for the school and the school programs.  If you are doing something great, get it out there.  It helps the school and your reputation within it, which should be more solid then tenure any day.   

I don’t know what it is about administrators.  The job seems to call to a similar, non-confrontational type the way teaching sometimes calls to people who don’t want bosses.  But the fact remains that an administrator needs to be brave to do his or her job right.  The principal can’t be afraid to make enemies in the staff – a weak teacher on staff is far more demoralizing to the greater good then an administrator on the hunt for cruddy teachers in their natural habitat, the closed-door classroom.  The principal can’t be scared to begin a long legal process.  It happens.  It’s not surprising that a teacher will fight to keep their job, but it is surprising when an administrator doesn’t fight to shake off a shabby teacher in their staff’s midst.