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Contact your Delegate and Senator now!!

The VEA (Virginia Education Association) has provided teachers the following form letter at the following link.

Governor McDonnell’s education agenda includes an effort to deprive future teachers who have completed their probationary service of a fair dismissal process.  Should Delegate Richard Bell’s HB 576 and the Senate companion Bill, Senator Obenshain’s SB 438 pass, an experienced teacher, who has completed probation and worked successfully on a term contract – or completed many terms – can be denied continued employment.  No reason is required to deny contract renewal.  There is no procedure for the teacher to appear before the school board and no basis on which the teacher can appeal the decision to deny the term contract.  

It is difficult to understand why teachers are being singled out in this manner.  State employees and other public employees who have completed probation are afforded a just cause dismissal process, and state employees have binding arbitration.  Why should teachers and principals be singled out in this manner?

Some will argue that many private sector employees are at-will employees who can be fired at any time.  I would answer that teaching is a profession.  Young prospective teachers must take five years of college to prepare, they pass multiple PRAXIS examinations, they successfully complete student teaching, and they successfully complete the probationary years of teaching.  They invest years and considerable resources to qualify to teach in Virginia.   It is simply wrong, after all that, to summarily dismiss them from employment without so much as a reason.

We have the fourth best school system in the nation.  Our teachers have performed very well in these tough economic times when supplies have been scarce and when class sizes have been soaring. You should be looking for ways to reward them – not slap them.

Please vote against HB 576/SB 438.