Join me at 5 PM EST today, July 6, as we cover the Bradley County Schools work session on the Code of Ethics questions LIVE.
UPDATE (July 7). Last night’s meeting was extremely helpful to me as the board attorney, Mr. Cagle, addressed several of the questions provided by educators in Bradley County Schools. Two things stuck out to me about this situation. First, only 7 teachers emailed questions to the Director out of nearly 1,200 employees in the system. Perhaps some were afraid to do that, but it is doubtful that the entire system was afraid to do that. Second, other than the board, the attorneys, and the press, there were only 6 of us in the audience. That’s 6 out of nearly 1,200 employees. Half way through, there were only 5 left. One of them was a principal. One was a district office employee. One is running for school board. One was a member of BCEA. One I did not recognize. One was me.
Here are the findings in a nutshell (at least the findings I thought were pertinent):
- The policy was intended to give teachers more legal protections than they previously had under the old policy. Both Mr. Cagle and Judge Deacon stated that it does that.
- The policy is in no way intended to be a witch hunt to fire teachers.
- The policy does offer teachers and others some sort of confidential redress if they have a problem with a school board member (this confidentiality was not present before). However, the policy is not intended as a means for someone to try to get a board member “fired.” They may be censured if found guilty of unethical behavior.
- Current employees are not required to sign the policy in order to keep their jobs. This was a common myth perpetuated early based on, in my opinion, poor communication to teachers about the policy itself. While I encourage all teachers to sign the form that you are aware of the policy change, you are not legally bound to do so.
- The policy does not infringe on the legal rights of BCEA to negotiate on behalf of teachers in our system. BCEA does not negotiate policy. The policy does not change the contractual agreement between the system and its employees.
I would like to thank the Bradley County School Board, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. Cagle, and Judge Deacon for taking the time to address the questions of both teachers and board members concerning this policy. I thought the meeting was very informative.
It was good to see you at the meeting. I was very happy with the work session and I feel much better about the policy and what it stands for. I believe anyone who is involved with children should be held to the highest standards possible. I hope this will put others concerns to rest and we can start school in a few weeks on a good note. I can’t believe it’s already July!!
I just read your live blog of the meeting and in it you asked why I voted “yes” in February and seemed to be against the policy at the meeting. I didn’t mean for it to sound that way. I do support the policy but some of it I felt needed to be clarified. In a perfect world the clarification would come first and the vote second. I voted yes because I believed it was a sound policy because of the people involved in creating it. I also knew that I would be able to get the clarification for myself and the individuals whom put their trust in me to represent them eventually.
I sat in the audience and watched board meetings for almost 2 years before I ran and I was amazed that most of the time I was the only nonemployee there. It also amazes me that candidates will go door to door asking for votes but not attend a meeting of the office they are running for.
Christy, thank you for your comments here. I thought the meeting was very informative and helpful. The biggest disappointment I had was in the low attendance, but then, I’ve been a teacher in BCS for 7 years and I rarely came to a board meeting most of that time (let alone a work session). I think the work the board does is very important. I hope to become more involved as time goes on. Thank you again for the comments!