Posted on 05/25/2002 3:09:13 AM PDT by jonefab
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP)
Though officials say it's not tied to this year's plagiarism controversy, Piper High School will lose almost 30 percent of its teachers and counselors, district officials said.
Seven teachers and two counselors from the high school's staff of 31 teachers and counselors have resigned, Piper Superintendent Mike Rooney said. The number is higher than usual, but the people are leaving for "a whole bunch of reasons," Rooney said.
"I wouldn't tie it all to what happened with the botany project," Rooney said.
However, a teacher who has served as a spokeswoman for the school's teachers said she thought the plagiarism flap did have an impact. A parent helping lead an effort to recall three school board members agrees.
The controversy centers around biology teacher Christine Pelton's resignation in December after Rooney ordered her to change the failing grades of students she had accused of plagiarism. The order came after the school board discussed the matter behind closed doors the night before.
There is still no consensus on who ordered the grading change. Pelton said Rooney told her then that the board made the decision. But since then, three board members have claimed that Rooney made the call.
Regardless, many teachers think that administrators and the board broke faith with them by failing to back Pelton, English teacher Leona Sigwing said this week. She said the district's leaders still have a long way to go to rebuild trust with teachers.
Some of the Piper teachers said they couldn't continue to work with administrators who failed to treat them as professionals, said Pam Ruth, one of the parents leading the recall effort.
"Some of the teachers we are losing are superb teachers," Ruth said. "My freshman is not a happy camper knowing that she is losing people she was counting on to be there for her."
The leaders of the recall effort also are upset with the role Rooney played, and they've asked the school board to fire him. The board has not responded.
On Thursday, Rooney declined Thursday to comment on that effort.
He also said Thursday that the number of students accused of plagiarism was 25, not 28, as has been widely reported. He said there might have been some confusion initially because three students failed to complete the assignment.
I watched a news special about this incident and some of the comments the parents made were just sick: "Oh it's not kid's fault you did not give enough time for project completion or that the assignment was to hard or you didn't explain to my child that he/she could not cheat." I was amazing what these parents were saying.
Chip
Well selected words you buffoon.
The teachers who resigned show they are truly concerned about education and not looney (rhymes with Rooney) acquiescence to demands made by parents of students who have the moral fiber of a pimp.
Yes, they could do that. How fortunate that they haven't figured it out! No, that will never happen here.
Oops!
As a parent, I have always told my kids the teachers are the boss, the final word, rarely do I go against the teachers if there is a dispute. I will explain that people can be total jerks but that is life, and it gets them ready for a jerk boss and co-workers in the future.
I have had alot more problems with parents of my kids friends than teachers, administrators or the kids themselves, there are alot of bad parents out there. I am not a teacher, just a parent with kids in public school for 15 years, a very small public school, graduating class of 2000, 18 grads.
The teachers who resigned show they are truly concerned about education and not looney (rhymes with Rooney) acquiescence to demands made by parents of students who have the moral fiber of a pimp.
What concerns me a great deal here is how the parents and the guilty students reacted. They had no ethics or honor. Parents expected the grades to be changed, and the little cheating monsters won a huge victory as to actually runs the school, and you can bet that it isn't the honorable teachers!
I hope those teachers that are leaving are able to find work and institutions that welcome edcuation and refuse to allow parents/students to run the school. Of course, they will have to go into private schools, not public indoctrination centers.
What about the kids that did to the work, that did complete the assignment correctly? They have got to be hugely disappointed that all their hard work was for naught. After all, 25 of their fellows got passing grades for doing nothing.
I hope that the teachers who resigned are able to find employment in a district that emphasizes education and honesty in the creation of tomorrows citizenry.
Thanks for asking, but I'm still a dad (the greatest word a man can hear) but not a grand dad, yet. We're on full alert, packed, suited up and ready to go the minute the phone rings.
God bless,
EODGUY
Oh, that's different. I feel so much better now.
That was deliberate, right?
It was Republicans who stand behind this humble hero teacher. Republicans who gave her a standing ovation.
The democrats are incapable of understanding any of this since they are utterly clueless as to the significance of one small person making a courageous and ethical stand.
Some voters may however get the the point. See you in November!
Quote "I'd lost the kids' respect. I heard kids talking about that if they didn't like what I did in the future, they could go to the board of education and they could change that," she said in an interview last week. More troubling to the community, Piper students have also been mocked. At an interscholastic sporting event involving Piper, signs appeared among the spectators that read "Plagiarists."
Students have reported that their academic awards, such as scholarships, have been derided by others. And one girl, wearing a Piper High sweatshirt while taking a college-entrance exam, was told pointedly by the proctor, "There will be no cheating." All 12 deans of Kansas State University signed a letter to the Piper school board that including the statement: "We will expect Piper students ... to buy into [the university's honor code] as a part of our culture. Unquote Education Week article
Quote The story has received national attention. The CBS news program 48 Hours is expected to broadcast a segment on an upcoming show, according to Pelton and others who said they had been interviewed. Pelton said a Piper Board of Education member "got in my face" before a board meeting Tuesday because he was upset about her participation in the movie. She declined to identify the board member. Unquote Education Week article
There is one constant, and that is no matter what the public institution, when the public gets an inside view of our public institutions we rarely see the will to withstand political pressure and stand on moral and ethical principle.
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