Typical of yet another person suffering from a severe case of "Authorititis". Tell the people they don't know the whole story, then be certain not to actually fill them in on what that story is. Why can I see this board member screaming "you can't handle the truth" in a really poor Nicholson impersonation?
The schools on the Missouri side in Kansas City are generally pretty bad, with a few exceptions. Granted, this one isn't in Kansas City proper, but apparently wishes it were. This principal needs to be fired and prevented from working with children again, and any board member (are you listening, Faulkenberry?) should be voted out in disgrace.
The fired teacher, Christa Price, went to the principal -- who is also the district superintendent -- and asked him to reconsider the punishment, but he wouldn't. So on her free period, Price helped the girl pick up rocks. Other teachers watched the girl the next day.
Ted Feinberg, assistant executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists, questioned Doerhoff's decision to have elementary pupils pick up rocks.
“Is he a feudal lord building a pyramid?” Feinberg asked from his office in Bethesda, Md. “School discipline is not the same as hard labor in prison.
“School discipline needs to have an educational purpose. What was he teaching this girl — how to pick up rocks? This would only cause frustration, anger, embarrassment and more oppositional behavior.”
At contract time in March, Supt. Dan Doerhoff recommended firing Price, a popular teacher with good performance evaluations, for insubordination. Seven other teachers 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.
One of the teachers who resigned, Jenny Neemann, said having a security camera on the area where the girl worked wasn't enough.
''Somebody could have nabbed her in 10 seconds,'' she said.
Doerhoff ...dropped the punishment of picking up rocks because of the uproar.
Kansas City Star and Springfield, Missouri News-Leader via
http://www.susanohanian.org/