Quality teaching is the top reform initiative for Denver Public Schools, yet the district’s worst teachers are rarely formally removed from the classroom.
Last year, four teachers out of 4,500 were officially dismissed because of poor performance — the most in a decade. This school year, no DPS teachers were fired, a figure that even district officials say is bothersome.
“Those numbers are really low,” said Shayne Spalten, DPS director of human resources. “We haven’t had a lot in the past eight years. Across the country, this is an issue.”
School districts have struggled for decades with how to dismiss bad teachers, blaming bureaucracy or timid and overworked principals, or a combination of the two, said Sandi Jacobs, vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality in Washington, D.C.
“The stakes couldn’t be higher, because we know the compounding effects of having a subpar teacher and the effects it has on the kids,” she said.
Official numbers of dismissed teachers do not include those who resign instead of going through the process or who were fired during their first three years of teaching, said Jefferson County schools Superintendent Cindy Stevenson.
In her district, the largest in Colorado, with about 5,000 licensed teachers, three teachers were dismissed over a three-year period. All three had their cases reviewed by administrative law judges, and two were reinstated.
“When you actually go through the dismissal process, it’s huge,” Stevenson said. “It’s like a trial. It’s really hard. Mediocre performance is a whole lot harder to prove.”
In Colorado, the term “teacher tenure” was officially scrubbed from the books in 1990, ostensibly to make it easier for districts to dismiss poor performers. But in practice, teachers with at least three years of experience are difficult to fire.
Educators say the law provides due process and protects them from false accusations.
In Denver, if a principal determines a teacher is underperforming, a 30- to 90-day remediation plan may be implemented. Goals are set.
If the teacher fails, he may be dismissed with board approval.
“The feedback that we hear is how time-consuming the process is,” Spalten said.
“Lots of red tape”
Colorado law says a teacher can be fired for “incompetency, neglect of duty, immorality, insubordination, justifiable decrease in the number of teacher positions and other just and good cause.”
“A principal can put together a case for some ‘good and just cause,’ ” said Deborah Fallin of the Colorado Education Association. “All that language says is you have to have a good reason and documentation.”
Over the past two years, DPS has dismissed 31 teachers for disciplinary reasons.
“The reality is there is lots of red tape to make it difficult to fire a teacher for poor performance,” said Jacobs of the National Council on Teacher Quality. “What (districts) have to invest in dismissing teachers can be hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it becomes not worth it.”
In 1987, the Calhan School District in El Paso County spent $125,000 dismissing an underperforming teacher.
The top goal of the Denver Plan, the district’s reform manifesto, is for students to learn from “a highly skilled faculty in every school.”
Teachers are supposed to get annual evaluations from principals — retired principals have been hired to help keep up. Teachers also get regular training and may join a pay system that offers rewards for meeting certain goals.
Union seeks role
Denver’s teachers union has pushed for a work group to study best practices around the nation for managing new teachers, evaluation, remediation and dismissal.
“We have recognized that our support systems for teachers are lacking, and we are working to try to create something that will help,” said Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.
In Denver, principals also may avoid the remediation process by “reducing” their low- performing teachers from the building, effectively sending them to another school at the end of the year.
If those reduced teachers are not picked up by a school, they are placed into a school by district officials.
For next year, 300 DPS teachers have been reduced from their current buildings. Many of these teachers are being moved not because of performance issues, but because of budgetary or program changes at their schools, human-resources chief Spalten said.
Half of those 300 have veteran status. Forty have already been hired at different schools.
“Students and families and teachers and the district all have a shared interest in having the best possible teachers,” DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg said.
“Part of that is working together to find the best ways to support and coach teachers who are not performing well and also be able to address situations when that support and coaching does not improve teaching.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
