“Our current system for teacher termination is unfair and creates a culture of fear for educators,” Glastonbury Education Association President Kristen Basiaga told members of the legislature’s Education Committee during a public hearing today.
Though the public hearing was conducted virtually due to the blizzard blanketing the state, teachers and aspiring educators made sure their voices were heard on a number of bills being considered, including those dealing with just cause and other protections for educators.
[Above, Basiaga addresses legislators at a previous CEA Breakfast with Legislators. Sign up for an opportunity to talk with your legislators this Saturday.]
Fairness for teachers
For most state and public employees, discipline is carried out according to a recognized legal standard called just cause. This standard ensures that the process is fair, any resulting discipline is proportionate, and that due consideration is given to the evidence, facts, and circumstances surrounding that employee’s dismissal. Teachers aren’t afforded just cause when their jobs are on the line, and House Bill 5218 An Act Concerning Teachers aims to fix that.
Teachers who are facing termination are entitled to a hearing before a neutral hearing officer, but this officer’s decision is only a recommendation to the local board of education. It is the board of education, not a neutral third party, who makes the final decision in the event of an appeal. For educators, the threat of arbitrary treatment creates the climate of fear that Basiaga describes.
“I know cases of teachers who have resigned because this current system is unfair,” she said. “And all teachers end up feeling fearful and asking themselves, ‘Should I not put a Second Amendment bumper sticker on my car in case it provokes criticism?’ Or, ‘Should I not have an ‘all students are welcome here’ button because parent complaints could turn into me losing my job?'”
“That fear has a chilling effect on discourse,” CEA President Kate Dias said. “We’ve had teachers in conservative and liberal districts alike face this—it is not a partisan issue. Teachers shouldn’t leave their right to free speech at the door. We want them to feel that speaking out on issues of public concern is a normal part of being a citizen in a democracy.”
Newington teacher Jennifer Rodriguez told legislators that fear about speaking up on an issue of public concern—the poor condition of their school building—stopped teachers at her school from advocating for the educational environment their students deserved.
Rodriguez’s school was in a state of disrepair and faced significant leaks after every major snow or rainstorm; barrels lined the corridors.
“Students walked through what felt like a maze just to access learning,” Rodirguez said. “Under an earlier administration, it was clear that educators were not to speak publicly about the condition of our building. There was fear. Fear of fall out, fear of retaliation, and fear of dismissal.”
After administration changed, Rodriguez and other educators felt supported in speaking out and the attention they drew to the state of their building enabled much-needed repairs to be made.
“Our students’ learning conditions shouldn’t depend on who is in charge,” she said. “House Bill 5218 matters because it establishes a just cause standard and strengthens due process. We shouldn’t have to choose between advocating for our students and protecting our livelihoods.”
Avon Education Association President Jon Moss told legislators that since 2018 his union has had a just cause standard that they bargained into their contract.
“My superintendent and I have never had a conflict over this because it works well for both employees and management,” he said. “The just cause standard benefits everyone. Having well-understood policies that are consistently applied with thorough investigations and fair consequences makes sense to everyone.”
Moss said requiring that a neutral arbitrator be the ultimate decider in termination hearings is essential because of the political, financial, and other pressures that can affect the decisions of superintendents and boards of education.
“Currently in state statute, even if the hearing officer supports the reinstatement of the teacher, the board can decide to unilaterally disregard that outcome and move forward with the termination.”
Moss concluded, “Just cause doesn’t get anyone off the hook automatically, and it doesn’t over protect people who have committed serious infractions. Just cause simply ensures that everyone is treated fairly and equitably.”
“We are not asking that teachers be given expanded or special rights just the same level of due process that every other private or public sector organized workforce receives,” said CEA General Counsel Adrienne DeLucca.
Protections for teachers facing challenging student behavior
Connecticut statute states that any school employee who is absent from work due to injuries sustained during an assault is entitled to their full salary during that absence. If the employee receives workers’ compensation benefits, the district must pay the difference between those benefits and the employee’s full salary, ensuring the employee remains whole.
CEA Legal Counsel Melanie Kolek told legislators that, unfortunately, in recent years CEA has seen school districts take the position that they are not obligated to provide full salary in assault-related absences if the student “did not intend” to assault the teacher.
“This interpretation has created serious and troubling consequences,” she said. “For example, I represented a teacher who was struck aggressively in the chest by a student, knocking her backward and causing significant injury. This was the third assault by the same student in less than three weeks. The district denied her full salary, arguing that the child ‘did not mean to hit’ her because the child allegedly did not understand the differences between right and wrong. Many districts now argue that an assault under the statute requires proof of an intentional act coupled with wrongful purpose.”
Kolek said that the bill before the legislature “would simply remove the ambiguity surrounding student intent and make clear that assaulted school personnel are entitled to fair treatment and full salary protection when they are forced to miss work due to injuries sustained in an assault. This is not an expansion of the law. It is a clarification to ensure that the protections the legislature intended are meaningfully upheld.”
NEA Danbury Vice President Julian Shafer said that, even though he’s only been a union leader for one year, he’s already repeatedly witnessed how current practice puts teachers in challenging situations. Most often, he said, it is teachers who work with young children or students with significant special needs who are being penalized by misinterpretations of state statute.
“Our elementary teachers don’t like to use the word assault when they’ve been hurt by a young student in their classroom,” he said. “They see the best in our kids, they want the best for them and using the word assault feels charged—not wanting to use it is coming from a place of love. But even when elementary teachers do report young students’ challenging behavior as assault, administrators have questioned whether a child that small or that young can actually assault them. There was a case where a teacher had their hair pulled and were punched repeatedly in the face, yet administrators said it wasn’t intentional.”
“If this issue is not addressed, we risk driving assaulted educators out of the profession and deterring future educators from entering it,” Kolek said. “At a time when we are already facing staffing shortages, we cannot afford to send the message that school personnel will not be protected when injured in the line of duty.”
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