Posted on 05/06/2005 5:11:21 AM PDT by beaureguard
The Gwinnett County School Board voted early Friday to fire a Dacula High School science teacher who refused to raise the grade he gave a student athlete who appeared to be sleeping in class.
At the end of a Thursday night hearing that stretched into the early morning hours of Friday, the board decided by a 4-1 vote to terminate veteran physics teacher Larry Neace, school system spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.
Neace left the building after the ruling and would not comment.
His lawyers said they planned to appeal the dismissal to the State Board of Education within 30 days.
"These students lost a teacher who cared not only about their academic growth, but their growth as individuals," said Deidre M. Stephens-Johnson, who represented Neace.
While the board agreed 5-0 that Neace violated school board policy by using grades as a disciplinary measure, board member Carol Boye, who represents Dacula High School, voted against the termination. She declined to comment on her vote.
School system spokeswoman Sloan Roach said she did not know when the termination would take effect. "He was already suspended with pay until the outcome of this hearing," she said.
More than 200 students, parents and teachers packed Thursday night's hearing to see whether Neace would lose his job.
Gwinnett school officials said Neace was barred from campus for insubordination after he repeatedly refused to comply with the district policy that prohibits using grades as discipline.
Neace, who has taught at Dacula High for 23 years, was removed from class after he refused to raise the grade he had given a football player on an overnight assignment. Neace said he cut the student's perfect grade in half because he thought the student had fallen asleep at his desk the day the assignment was made.
"What we have in this case is a case of a pampered football athlete sleeping in class and being given favored treatment on an academic grade," said Michael Kramer, another of Neace's lawyers. "What we have here is the principal essentially attempting to coerce and intimidate a teacher."
School officials said they gave Neace a chance to restore the football player's grade. When he refused, they sent him home. He has not been allowed back at school since April 14, when he was told he could resign or face being fired.
Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks recommended to the board that Neace be fired. "He cannot have a policy that supersedes board policy," Wilbanks said. "He had no right to do that."
Neace said he had a practice of reducing the grades of students who waste time or sleep in class. His course syllabus warns that wasting class time can "earn a zero for a student on assignments or labs." No administrators had previously complained about the practice, which he adopted more than a decade ago, Neace said.
Neace said during the hearing that he also noted another student appeared to be sleeping in class on the same day. It was not clear Thursday what happened with the other student's grade.
School officials said Thursday that it appeared Neace allowed students to sleep in class. "He said it was not his job to wake up students," Assistant Principal Donald Mason said.
When asked Thursday if students sleep in his class, Neace responded, "Very rarely."
As school administrators presented their case to the school board, supporters of the teacher spilled over from the hearing room into a hallway outside. Some wore buttons saying "What's Up Doc?" and Dacula junior Clark Hurst wore a shirt bearing the acronym SADD, for "Students Against Dumping Doc."
Neace said he has been overwhelmed by the support he has received from students.
Posters calling for his return decorated the high school's halls. Some students wore T-shirts protesting the principal's action and passed out fliers saying, "Forget the whales, save Doc." Students also circulated a petition asking administrators to reinstate Neace.
"It's overwhelming -- the support, the phone calls, the e-mails, the [editorials] in the paper," Neace said Thursday afternoon. "I am getting support from all over the country. I got an e-mail from a professor at Rutgers University that said he wishes more teachers would do what I was doing, because it would make his job so much easier in the classroom if kids were prepared to take responsibility for what they do."
Neace said he got the nickname "Doc" years ago because of an exercise he led in class. That day he wore a lab coat and a stethoscope as he took the blood pressure of students. "Somebody said, 'Mr. Neace looks like a doctor,' " he said. "That was 22 years ago, and the name stuck."
Dacula High parent Nancy Penn said she supports Neace's methods. She said her daughter, a former student of Neace's, understood and respected his practice of penalizing students who fall asleep in class.
"As a parent, if my student was falling asleep in class, I would be upset," Penn said. "I do not have a problem with him using tactics to bring my student to attention in class. A teacher needs authority to govern his students. If someone takes away his authority, how can he manage his classroom?"
School officials said the issue was not that a student fell asleep in class. Instead, they said, Neace refused to abide by a school district policy that says, "Grading is not to be used for discipline purposes."
The kid received a perfect score. It's the teacher that artificially lowered it.
The whole point is teach the students. If the students know the material and don't pay attention in class then who cares? If they are disruptive then they can be punished by given detention or suspension.
The school board was clear that grades could not be lowered as a form of punishment. The teacher broke the rules.
It's doubtful that the teacher would have ever let it get this far if it wasn't a football player. He knew that he would get the sympathy from all of the anti-athletes.
I sort of like the teacher but you simply can't defy your superiors.
>He knew that he would get the sympathy from all of the anti-athletes.<
The sympathy is from the reponsible parents who understand their is mor to education than completing the assignment.
"If they are disruptive then they can be punished by given detention or suspension."
Unfortunately, many parents don't care what the teacher says and many believe the teachers are nothing more then baby sitters. When a student doesn't respond to classroom rules, then the teacher needs to handle it. Doc handle this student and he should be rewarded not fired.
He got a perfect score on ONE assignment. His grades are not good enough to play ball if he gets HALF off this assignment. That means he hasn't done $#!T all year. Half credit on one assignment and this moron is ineligible? He didn't earn a spot on the schools team.
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"It's doubtful that the teacher would have ever let it get this far if it wasn't a football player. He knew that he would get the sympathy from all of the anti-athletes."
I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for this teacher. He lost his career of 20 plus years because of a slacker. With that said I'm in no way "anti-athletes". I played strong side linebacker in college and I'm encouraging my children to play school sports. My wife coaches High School Volleyball and teaches earth science. But these kids must understand that when they misbehavior at school they are stealing education time away from the other students which is not expectable and will be dealt with harshly.
Excellent! Your solution guarantees that American schools will continue their rapid decline into utter bedlam.
Well its about all a teacher has left. You can't smack em anymore.
The only discipline allowed to be done to kids now is to call the cops and turn them over to them. But of couse when that is tried its a scandal as well.
I'm glad I'm not a teacher.
Where in the story do you get this? The student could have been given detention or if it became a problem, suspension.
Instead, the teacher decided to take off points from an unrelated assignment. The teacher broker the rules and had a chance to back off once he was confronted but didn't. He is now history.
What are you talking about? Lowering grades is not an acceptable form of punishment in that school system. If a student turns in work and then he should be graded on it.
Your solution is just to let the teachers arbitrarily change grades. Students should be in school to learn - not to amuse their teachers.
If the teacher wanted to punish the student he had other means at his disposal - detention would have been one of them.
How did he 'steal education from other students'? He fell asleep in class. I've done it in college as have countless students. If he disturbed the class then the student should have been either warned or given a detention.
It is teachers like this that turns most kids away from wanting to learn. They're tyrants who get off on dishing out arbitrary punishment. In this case the punishment was against the rules and the teacher got caught in his own web.
I think you're correct, and I suspect that the student was borderline anyway, and with the low grade won't be eligible to play football next year.
That being said, there are literally dozens of openings for science teachers in Georgia, according to the TeachGeorgia website, so "Doc" shouldn't have any trouble finding a new job...in fact, last I heard, some of the neighboring counties were paying "signing bonuses" of several thousand dollars for new science teachers.
Amen, my God what person hasn't had sleepy days either at work or school.
He might. Dacula high school has over 2,500 students and only 114 signed a petition to save his job. Apparently he is not very popular with his students nor the administration.
He sounds like the typical geek tyrant teacher that ruins math and science for all of the non-geeky kids. I had to learn science on my own as my HS science teachers spent all of their time trying to act geeky and act like they were in the movie "Revenge of the Nerds".
Students don't learn anything from teachers like this. If they did, more than 114 would have wanted to save his job.
Student was warned in the syllabus, did it anyway. He deserves what he got. Boo-hoo to him for needing a nap so bad. Kudos to the teacher for trying to remain some discipline in his classroom.
Doesn't it seem that more and more posters are commenting on stories before actually reading them? It's like they read the headline, maybe the first paragraph and then make up their own story (which is usually a negative one). This is the third time tonight I've witnessed this.
Hard to say. In my area, physics is taken in the senior year, and a small proportion of students take it. For all you know, 95% of his students signed the petition.
Personally, I'd have handled the situation differently. Rather than allowing the class to finish the assignment for homework, I'd have taken it up at the end of the class period and graded what had been done. Then Mr. Sleepyhead would've had a zero rather than a 50.
Michelle Malkin is the worst at doing this. She loves to find "outrages".
The teacher was warned in the school board's rules and he did it anyway. He deserves what he got. Boo-hoo to him for needing to caring more about if a student pays attention in class than if the student actually knows the material. Kudos to the school board for not allowing teachers to be tyrants.
This take totally discredits the idea that this student was a jock that was used to getting special treatment from teachers. If that was the case, he would have never been in an exclusive class in the first place.
You are correct. There is no problem with teachers not being able to discipline in our schools. Thanks for setting me straight.
Now let's see how many people are consistent...
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