The school board in Guilford County, North Carolina, voted unanimously tonight to defy state legislation denying “tenure” (career status) to experienced teachers.
According to the latest news reports:
“GREENSBORO — The Guilford County School Board unanimously supported a resolution challenging the state’s new tenure law and asking for relief from laws requiring them to offer contracts to certain teachers in exchange for their tenure.
Teachers in the audience stood and clapped as the board’s vote appeared on a TV screen. Then board members and district staff stood and clapped for teachers.
Board members said the law is unconstitutional, its wording unclear. They also said the legislation “represents yet another thinly veiled attack on public education and educators.
Updated 7:11 p.m.
GREENSBORO — Senate leader Phil Berger said he is “deeply troubled” by reports that the Guilford County Board of Education will vote tonight not to follow provisions of the state teacher tenure law.
In a letter sent to Superintendent Maurice “Mo” Green, Berger said that by ignoring the law, board members are failing to “recognize and reward excellent teachers.”
Board members are expected to vote to not choose certain teachers to award new contracts, as required by law.
About six of the 11 board members already have indicated they support that vote.
Tonight, teachers wearing red for public education, packed the board room and central office. About an hour before the meeting started, teachers — some from out of state — chanted and held signs protesting recent legislation affecting education.
Several teachers spoke during the public comment period of the meeting, thanking board members for their expected voted.
“Right now educators are facing a death of a thousand cuts,” said teacher Todd Warren, who has spoken out about raising pay for all teachers.
Amy Harrison, a special education teacher at Reedy Fork Elementary, thanked the board and told them every teacher at her school has signed a petition pledging to decline the new contracts.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Go, Guilford, go!
Now, that ain’t GAGA!
I think we know where to go find some cojones!!
That’s right. Carolina yo.
Way to go, Guilford!
Bravo!
The detail about the teachers and school board giving each other standing ovations after the vote is lovely, how nice that mutual respect has been earned in Guilford.
indeed!
To Joanna Best and other North Carolinians,
May this recent action be the tiny microscopic germination of a seed that will at one point grow into thousands of acres of giant redwood oak trees . . . .
There is still to be a long protracted fight, I think, in NC, but you have to start somewhere and realize some kind of seminal victory. Guilford leans heavily in that direction.
I support Guilford, and would like to say to the governor of NC and the NGA that his notions and ambitions are dead wrong, and that he surrounds himself in environments driven by non-educators. He and the NGA can go jump in the lake, which hopefully will have a moist marshy floor lined with nothing but political quicksand . . . .
When I envision the governor’s head sticking out of the quicksand, and those of his NGA’s members, I will extend a rope out to each one, and at the last minute pull it away while laughing heartily.
Oops, I missed, guys.
Sorry.
Bah-Bye . . . . .
Love your comment!
I’m wondering if someone looked and found a “pattern and practice” of ed reformers pushing out middle aged teachers in one of these states or cities they run?
I know the objective is to hire less experienced teachers because they’re cheaper hires, and constant “churn” in employees is a long-term practice of low wage employers, but if they’re pushing out more experienced teachers and that always or often means “older” it might be something to look at.
Chiara..That is exactly what is happening…
But it hits the teachers with around 10 years more (or at least that proposed raise did). And that’s the age when teachers who have children of their own are right smack in the middle of raising them, with college just around the corner. All of these measures hurt children in that regard too.
I am telling you, they are under the influence of Koppism (McCrory et al). They think they are being hip.
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
Bravo! This is excellent news, indeed. My hat is off to the board members of Guilford County!
I agree with you 100%. They showed great courage in defying this decisive statute. We can only hope that other boards will show the same resove to do right by their teachers.
I meant “devisive”, not decisive – *%# autocorrect!
This is how a community shows respect to its teachers. This is how a community shows that it IS a community.
And this is how a community tells amoral autocrats and their flunkies who runs their schools.
This is the county that hired this man…..
This is the county that hired very young principals…so I have been told..
Bravo to the Board.
Breaking this law was a moral obligation. The board members in Guilford provide the model for the rest of the country. This is how a community that honors its teachers acts.
I concur!!!
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina and commented:
We did the same thing here in Christina against a pernicious and meritless attempt by the Delaware DOE to try and force us to issue bonuses based on test scores. They “took” our RTTT monies and SET US FREE! It is glorious!
freedom is precious and endangered. good for you!
WOW……Money can not buy freedom !!
It buys Politicians who know nothing about the children in these schools…nor do they really care..
Let me make one point, and one point only:
Standing up to the establishment in defiance of immoral laws and behaviors and speech is what the civil rights movement—the real genuine article—was all about.
There will be those who will declare themselves shocked—shocked I tell you!—that such lowly beings are defying the will of their social superiors and betters.
Freedom isn’t free.
“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning.” [Frederick Douglass]
I’ll go with Frederick Douglass—and Guilford—on this one.
😎
well said!
Deep Thinker!! Love it!
Frederick Douglass is one of my personal heroes. I have this quote of his in my library, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
Stand tall Guilford County.
Ms. Cartwheel Librarian: that’s one of my favorites too.
Another that goes to the heart of why this blog exists:
“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”
Krazy props.
😎
Oh yes. I love how he uses “unfit” in that statement.
We mustn’t allow them to learn to read or go to school. After all that would make them unfit to do the work we want.
He was such an amazing man.
Isn’t Guilford county where Pat McCrory just the other day stood and made the announcement that 1st and 2nd year teachers get a raise while the rest of us don’t.
Kind of ironic they are telling he and his friends to stuff it.
Sorry English teachers…”him and his friends” may be better.
He surely said exactly that…….He is looking to 2016…Thinking he can woo the young teachers to the polls..Not happening.
I have to LOL…
1. I will have Cabin Fever after this foot of snow
2. You hit the Nail on the Head…”You tell it like it is”…………:-)
SLAP in the face for NC teachers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“School leaders across the state have until July 1 to select teachers to offer a new four-year contract, as well as a compounding $500 pay increase.”
Guilford is proving themselves leaders….not followers..
Senator Phil Berger….continue to feel “deeply troubled”….The teachers have been deeply troubled and mistreated for years, but mostly they have been thrown under a bus along with the children of NC . Your state is a Testing State.
NC is First in Testing….that is all….
Veteran teachers have been forced out of the schools in NC and across the country.
They are treated as second class educators. Funny thing is that they are called back to replace younger teachers who have not a clue as to how to teach any topic on any level..(for lack of experience and lack of mentors)
The veteran teachers are constantly called and asks for ideas, resources, lesson plans, strategies, tutoring pull outs, tutoring after school …etc, and etc.
Veteran teachers learned to say NO to these requests as they are offered a whopping $15 an hour to go in and mentor these teachers and/or share…
They laugh…They grow stronger….
Are you kidding?? $15 an hour???
I know many veteran teachers that tutor…but they are charging $45 to $50 an hour….
Send the RTTT $$$$$$$$ back and Take Your Schools Back..
Good for you…..Guilford County School Board……………
.
YOU ARE LEADING THE WAY OUT OF THIS MAD MAZE !!
CORRECTION OOOOPS…..
The veteran teachers are constantly called and askED for ideas, resources, lesson plans, strategies, tutoring pull outs, tutoring after school …etc, and etc.
Amazing! This is what solidarity can produce. Send this united group of non-contract signing teachers ALL THE LOVE. But this united effort is what the crazed right wing intends to destroy. They will go after the teachers, their families and friends, county services, school board members, other county officials….whatever intimidation it takes to squash the uprising. Keep our thoughts and prayers and eyeballs on this story.
Berger said that by ignoring the law, board members are failing to “recognize and reward excellent teachers.”
So, he knows what teachers should want better than they do, eh?
Read Berger’s letter to Guilford County’s superintendent.
Way to go Guildford!!! They really support teachers and public education!!!
Here’s the threatening letter from Senator Bergen to the school superintendent of Guilford County School district, essentially calling him a criminal. http://www.news-record.com/pdf_f3595caa-9374-11e3-9f9b-0017a43b2370.html
Thank you for sharing this. I hope this letter goes viral.
That letter is an outrage. Sometimes the criminals are making the laws, aren’t they?
There is a long, noble history for usurping the powers of an unjust government.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”.