Check Your Certificates, and Check Them Often

The Evergreen State merited another mention in this month’s NEA Today, and it’s something that everyone should keep in the back of their minds:

The Mt. Adams School District continues to defend its decision to fire two teachers without termination hearings in 2002. Gary Giedra and Caryl Spencer were fired because their state certificates had expired—even though Spencer’s renewal application was mishandled by the district’s interoffice mail service, and Giedra had renewed his certificate within 11 days of its lapse. When the two lost their jobs without due process, the legal team at the Washington Education Association stepped in.

In 2005, after years of litigation, the Washington Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that the two had the right to termination hearings and awarded (them) about $215,000 in back pay and attorney fees. But last year, school district officials disputed the ruling. (One of the teachers has since stopped teaching, and the other moved to another district.) “Most school districts work with teachers in that situation,” says WEA field representative Mike Horner. “They put in a substitute while the teacher gets the certificate renewed.” The district could spend about $300,000 trying the case.

Background from the Yakima Herald-Republic here.

This happened to a guy I used to work with a couple years back; the district paid to have a substitute in his room while he carried on with starting the school year and teaching the kids. The real pisser of his situation is that it looked like he was going to have to go on the ProCert plan, since his continuing certificate had expired and he hadn’t gotten it renewed in time, but it happened so often statewide that Bergeson put in a grade period so that those affected could keep on the old program, which is a lot easier.