Handling Legal Issues & Procedures

When dismissing an incompetent teacher, standards of competence must be considered. The courts have defined areas in which unsatisfactory performance could be grounds for dismissal to include subject matter, teaching methods, effects on pupils, and personal attitudes. To dismiss a tenured teacher multiple sources of failure must be noted in addition to legal grounds such as neglect of duty, unbecoming conduct, or other just cause. Termination is usually based on a persistent pattern of mistakes and failures rather than one mistake.

Steps to take in the identification and dismissing of incompetent teachers include administrator publishing of reasonable criteria regarding teacher performance. This criteria can provide a legal basis for dismissal. Next the administrator must develop a process to determine if the teacher is adequately satisfying the criteria. The principal should next work with the teacher to determ

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must now involve the legal processes delineated by the district to implement this decision. The United Federation of Teachers provides a review of these legal procedures. The superintendent is also a resource regarding the making of decisions and the determination that all procedures have been adequately followed. Termination of a teacher requires a due process that allows for all parties to be fully informed and have a chance to present their own case. Prior to this process, the principal must be sure that all attempts to help the teacher change behaviors has been made. Principal-teacher discussions need to include written criteria, specific behaviors observed that do not meet criteria, goals for changing these behaviors, and evaluation of new behaviors. In this way the teacher has been adequately informed of the specific nature of the problem, what must be done to correct it, and whether they have succeeded in making these changes. In other words the teacher is fully involved in the termination process from the beginning, with the awareness that their behaviors must change to avoid dismissal. It is only when all of these efforts fail that the teacher is informed that the dismissal will be recommended. The legal p
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Approximate Word count = 2729
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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