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Monday, April 29, 2013

The Principal’s Dilemma as Mock Trial: Ed Law Colleagues Please Provide Your Opinions! | School Finance 101

The Principal’s Dilemma as Mock Trial: Ed Law Colleagues Please Provide Your Opinions! | School Finance 101:


The Principal’s Dilemma as Mock Trial: Ed Law Colleagues Please Provide Your Opinions!

The following is a hypothetical case I am using as the culminating activity in Public School Law this semester.
The Dismissal of Principal X
Principal X is principal in a local public middle school in a state that has recently adopted through legislation, articulated with greater precision in state department of education regulations, a new teacher evaluation scheme. The teacher evaluation laws and regulations now require that:
  • Any teacher who receives two sequential evaluations less than “satisfactory” shall have his/her tenure status revoked;
  • Teacher evaluations shall consist of 40 to 50% measures of student growth, where the majority shall be based on state provided metrics.
  • By regulatory decree of the State Commissioner of Education, any other measures selected by local district officials for inclusion in evaluations must be proven correlated with state approved and provided measures of student achievement growth.
Further, the state now conditions receipt of “any and all increases to state aid for local public school districts” on full compliance with statutes and regulations pertaining to teacher evaluation.
On September 20th of 2013, Principal X was provided with growth percentile data on her teachers from the prior