Well-intentioned in his Sept. 18 letter to the editor, Bob McCoy is mistaken about teaching, teachers and their unions. However, space allows addressing only one of his statements: “While we have outstanding teachers, nobody talks about the ones (protected by unions) who get by day to day until they can retire.”
Unions cannot protect anyone who breaks a contract. The National Labor Relations Board enforces laws requiring unions to give all employees equal representation — meaning, at the risk of being fined or disbanded by the NLRB, unions must present documentation backing the employee’s position in a dispute. District administrators are responsible for documentation showing the employee is breaking the contract. Documentation of facts wins the case and unions always document fully. But my fellow administrators rarely do so and thereby lose most cases.
I know this from experience in Los Angeles, Bellevue and Seattle districts where I helped remove “bad” teachers. Administrators too lazy, incompetent or self-important to document sufficiently are, in effect, “protecting” teachers that Bob doesn’t like. Even without a union involved, courts side with whichever party presents better documentation. And, from my experience, so-called “bad” employees seem especially adept at gathering evidence to make themselves look good. Proper and complete documentation by administrators is the key to eliminating teachers who just want to get by day to day.
A union of teachers is teachers and nothing but teachers. They want to work with the best, most dedicated, most enthusiastic, most energetic colleagues possible. Their ideal is akin to Mr. McCoy’s. That is, they would prefer administrators do a sufficient job of documenting so bad teachers can be terminated. The contractual procedures for doing so are in place. They just need to be followed.
Paul Heckel
Snohomish
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