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March 10, 2008
You're fired!Donald Trump's not the only one doing the firing these days. The Washingon Post reported on Saturday that the new Washington, D.C. School’s Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, fired 98 central office workers.
The Post called the act, “the first mass firings in about a decade” and said “the move came about two months after the D.C. Council gave [the Chancellor] unprecedented authority to reclassify…nonunion central office workers [to] "at-will" status, which allowed her to fire them without cause.”
Rhee said her efforts were geared towards efficiency, allowing the embattled DC system “to push more dollars down to the schools.”
One fired worker said he’d been in the central office for six years without receiving an evaluation until the new administration arrived. Wow! Six years! It boggles the mind that a public school employee would actually express surprise the he/she is being held accountable for his/her own job performance. And, the Chutzpah of the Year Award goes to . . . (Pssst… over here, dear reader. If you learn of any such blog opportunities, please do let BoardBuzz know).
Speaking of chutzpah, several other employees have also griped about the evaluation process to their city representatives. BoardBuzz wonders if they also objected to the recent evaluations after years of a free evaluation lunch, so to speak. Some parents apparently also disagree with the Chancellor’s methodology of fire-ology (or, should that be termin-ology?) “Cherita Whiting, an activist and parent of a D.C. public school student” said the employees should have gotten some sort of “probationary period to improve performance.” Hmmm… does this also apply to the fella that wasn’t evaluated for six years? Just asking.
But, Ms. Whiting may well be on to something when she said, "I hope the paperwork will substantiate each and every one of these firings… Otherwise, they're going to have lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit over it." That’s just what D.C. public schools need right now: more lawsuits! Oy vey!
Posted March 10, 2008 11:52 AM | School Boards
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