1 teacher fired, seven resign, over discipline protest
Seven of 10 Teachers Quit Mo. School (link is dead)
Penalty leads to rockslide of protest
Christa Price was fired from East Lynne School District in Cass County. She had objected to the punishment applied to an 11-year-old student. When her objections were rebuffed she helped the child complete her punishment. She lost her job for this insubordination.
The fourth-grader in the East Lynne School District in Cass County was assigned the task last September for refusing to do her schoolwork, but she was unsupervised except for a security camera. The playground was near a road but inside a fence.
…
At contract time in March, Superintendent Dan Doerhoff recommended firing Price, a popular teacher who had had good performance evaluations, for insubordination. Seven other teachers then chose not to return their contracts.“If a teacher who advocates on behalf of safety of a student is not fit to be a teacher at East Lynne or anywhere in Missouri according to this administration, then none of us are fit to teach at East Lynne,” the teachers who resigned said Tuesday in a statement.
Doerhoff’s actions don’t stop there. He has also refused to sign Price’s certification renewal, preventing her from getting another teaching job. He explained that doing so “could put me in a pickle”. He has discontinued the rock collection punishment due to the furor over this incident but insists it was not too strenuous and that security camera monitoring was perfectly safe.
Jim Morris, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said the department’s Kansas City-area supervisor has offered to speak to certification officials on Price’s behalf.
(Tip credit to Huebner)
What exactly was the child’s punishment? Cleaning up the playground? School officials just love to punish, punish, punish, don’t they?
The punishment was picking up rocks and carrying them in a bucket near a highway in front of the school. It appears the teacher wasn’t objecting to the punishment as much as the safety issue of an unaccompanied 9-year-old by a highway where she could be kidnapped or hit by a vehicle.
Picking up the rocks wasn’t necessarily a bad punishment for the child’s refusal to do school work, especially if the parents agreed to it in advance (they didn’t have much of a choice).
The serious mistake in judgement by Dan Doerhoff was in not having someone out there with the child for security reasons. It calls into question his ability to make common sense decisions…unless the near by street to the school yard is immune from pedophiles and other child abductors…
[sarcasm]Ahh, make-work. Such a useful punishment. So fraught with life-lessons. So likely to make him change his outlook on life. Why not make him write something 100 times on the chalkboard while we’re at it, and sidestep the kidnapping issue entirely?[/sarcasm]
Daycare Facilities have maximum guidelines for the kid to adult ratio to ensure proper staffing and supervision. Now are they going to have to put in minimums?
This case illustrates the farce of safety in school.
I hope to see this case in court. The punishment has a prison mentality to it. That type of punishment comes from the dark ages. I don’t care if it was pebbles, she was required to place in the bucket. Staying after school or writing sentences would have been quite
enough. Just what if she also has a learning
problem.
Did they ever test this child? NO
The reason being, it would cost them money.
The same reason this child was unsupervised.
It would cost the district money.
Where is the best interest of a child, in
this case? I have never heard of such a punishment at any school.
What’s next digging holes?
There seems to be a common thread running through these stories: bureaucratic obstinance.
It’s not very difficult to see that “picking up rocks and putting them into a bucket” is not way up on the top of the list of “appropriate punishments for not doing schoolwork.”
It’s not very difficult to see that a 9 - year - old’s working, unsupervised, alongside a highway could prove to be a risk to life and limb.
You really think school economy is the problem? I’m sure the school could have paid overtime for a shotgun - totin’, off - duty, State trooper, a la Cool Hand Luke, if they so chose.
The problem is inertia: This is how we did it; this is how we do it.
Change?
Thought?
Imagination?
Dumbe silleh!
“What’s next digging holes?”
Boss Paul: That ditch is Boss Kean’s ditch. And I told him that dirt in it’s your dirt. What’s your dirt doin’ in his ditch?
Luke: I don’t know, Boss.
Boss Paul: You better get in there and get it out, boy.
Gee when I was a little gutter-snipe, if I or any of the others snipes didn’t do our schoolwork, the punishment was …..*schoolwork*.
I actually made it through grade 10 French in the end by having learnt French by spending an incredible amount of time writing out French verb declensions! … And my endeavours were often, shall we say ‘proctored’ by my parents. (It takes quite a bit of time to write out 25 different verbs in 5 or 6 different tenses and 6 cases. And it takes more than twice as long to do 50 when you can’t use any of the same verbs again!),
Your link seems to be dead. Here’s an alternative
That one’s been archived as well. I’ve found a fresh one at The Kansas City Star.
“He has also refused to sign Price’s certification renewal… He explained that doing so “could put me in a pickle”.“
He thinks forcing a child out to the edge of school grounds unsupervised and unprotected, fence or not, is not a potential “pickle”?
And what kind of punishment is that anyway? A wonder she was not given a hammer and told to make big ones into little ones.
Our children attend this school.
Nothing new was achieved at the last board meeting as far as I can gather from the info. I received from a school board member on “our” side that I spoke with at length. He and a few of the others are frustrated just like the rest of us parents. Here are some links to more news stories about our situation: http://www.demo-mo.com/news2-061705.html
http://www.demo-mo.com/opinion.html
On a personal note, we are currently looking into sending 3 of our children to a different school district. Which WE would have to pay for, because our school has gone to h=!!… Pleasant Hill public school would charge us $5,000 for each child! Harrisonville public school, I have not been able to contact. And, the private Christian school in Harrisonville would be around $7500 total for the 3 of them. (This is the one we are leaning toward).
I have been told that 4 kids in my sons class of 11 are going to be attending school someplace else and 4 others are undecided (5 if you count our child). This is just one class!!! Generally speaking, we are NOT wealthy people in this area…I can’t think of anyone who can really AFFORD to send their children to another district where they have to pay. But, we all feel our children are worth the drastic sacrifices we will have to make!
I had this thought last night while trying to go to sleep…It’d be soooooo awesome if some corporation or several…understood our plight and made a donation to help our families give our children the eduation they DESERVE… we could split the donations between the children to help pay for their education. I know it’s a long shot, but it’s a dream…since the reality of what’s happening to our school and children is such a nightmare!
I think I can speak on the behalf of many…that we truly appreciate everyone around the WORLD that have heard of us and our situation and are supportive of our efforts. It’s a great feeling to know we are not being totally ignored… and that we are being supported people who don’t even know us!
I am also a mother of a child in the East Lynne school district who has decided to spend our child’s very small college fund to send him to another school. This is our child’s one and only chance at a quality education and I will not sacrifice that for the sake of money. Hear that, Doerhoff? There are more important things in the world than money–what a totally foreign concept to this horrible man!
Doerhoff (the superintendent) is so completely obsessed with money and power and control that he is refusing to sign an incredible teacher’s certification because it would put him in a “pickle”. He has been using “unconventional” disciplinary methods for years and when upset parents have approached him about this issue in the past, he somehow is able to have restraining orders slapped on them for sticking up for their children. One woman had to spend 3 nights in jail for “threatening” this insane man–she was almost 80 years old and 4′11″ and was only trying to protect her grandson from his Hitleresque clutches! It is CRAZY that the school board has not fired him since he has been fired from every other school district he has ever worked in. What are you waiting for?!? Our school to go under for the lack of students? That’s right around the corner, guys, so you had better act fast. Even though my child will be at another school, I want what is best for ALL the children in the district and that is NOT Doerhoff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!