ECISD Trustees Terminate Teacher’s Contract

By Gloria Way

 Trustees unanimously terminated a term contract of a teacher for “good cause” at its regular meeting held Monday night. On the agenda, item #8A read “consider Superintendent Recommendation to Propose Termination of Term Contract Employee for Good Cause (K. Bull). The action item vote took place after the board convened it into executive session for close to 90 minutes.

  Teachers at ECISD are offered contracts in early spring to return to the school to teach in the following school year. If the school does not want to a teacher to return, the teacher is not “terminated” per se, the teacher is not offered a contract to return. In this instance regarding agenda #8A, the teacher was offered and signed a contract to continue teaching in the following school year. But an incident happened in her classroom with a student on April 7^th (after her contract was renewed).

  According to said student and other student witnesses in the class, the teacher and student argued over how to write an essay. According to the student the argument escalated into name calling with the teacher speaking to the student in a demeaning, belittling manner. According to the student and witnesses, the teacher also made derogatory comments about religion and the student’s opinion of someone she admired (Charlie Kirk). Apparently, the teacher according to the student and witnesses kept singling out the student to the point where the student said the teacher’s presence made her feel “uncomfortable and unsafe”.  The teacher attempted to have the student removed from her class. After word of the incident became known, several students and parents of current and former students approached the administration with examples of “questionable behavior” by the teacher over the years.

  The teacher in question has been a teacher at ECISD for 10 years and has received “exemplary” scores as a teacher through the years. The teacher spoke in “public comments” at the board meeting stating that she could resign “but has too much integrity” and belief in her ability as a teacher.

  About 70 parents and students attended the meeting. Seven people spoke in public comments during the meeting. Three spoke in favor of termination of the teacher’s contract and four spoke against termination. The teacher, her mother, brother, and a student’s mother spoke in the teacher’s favor, and the student, her mother, and the mother of a student who witnessed the altercation spoke in favor of termination.

  The Board of Trustees voted in favor of termination due to remarks given in the closed session which means the reason for termination cannot be discussed in open session.

  The meeting adjourned at 8pm.