Teacher are escorted out by security or police after being fired. Not allowed to talk to friends.

[madfloridian]

She was only allowed to get her purse, then escorted out of the building by security. She had working so hard on a remediation plan, but her principal would not accept it though she sweated over it and lost weight. A judge later found the principal's claims were completely baseless.

Sabrina, a teacher, tells the story at her blog. We have to rely on bloggers, you know...as the media will never cover such as this.

From Sabrina's Failing Schools blog:

Criminalizing Teachers

At the time, one of my closest friends in the building (and, just two years prior, the school’s Mile High Teacher of the Year) was nearing the end of an incredibly stressful remediation plan. (For folks who don’t know, a remediation plan is one of the necessary steps to be taken before a non-probationary teacher can be terminated.) Despite the fact that we believed the plan was unjustified, and despite the fact that the plan required her to do an absurd amount of extra work and documentation, my friend did every last thing asked of her. She didn’t miss a single day of work, even though the job had gotten so tough on her and her health that she started losing weight.

Still, at the end of the process, our principal looked at all of her evidence and decided that she had failed. After that meeting, our Human Resources representative accompanied her back to her classroom to get her purse, where I and a few other colleagues were waiting for her in case she needed our support. As they arrived, Ms. HR informed us that she was not allowed to talk to us, and we were not allowed to talk to her. A security officer joined them, and then my friend was escorted out of the building as though she’d been accused of a crime.

(A judge later found the principal’s claims of her poor performance in the classroom completely baseless. His 40+ page decision explained in detail how virtually all of the evidence collected against her was either laughably flimsy, or supported her contention that she was, in fact, a very good teacher.)

I was disgusted by the display. Even if there had been merit in the attempted dismissal, she hadn’t been accused of breaking the law. She hadn’t behaved in a threatening or hostile manner. In truth, there was no evidence to suggest she’d done anything wrong. So why call security? What was the point of treating this woman– who had exclusively devoted over two decades of her life to teaching needy kids– like a suspect? What kind of organization would humiliate people like this, in front of their peers and community, for no good reason? I wrote my resignation letter as soon as I got home.

Sabrina links to another such incident where teachers were escorted out of the building by police in DC. It makes no sense either.

Students Take to the Streets Against DCPS RIF (Reduction in Force)

This post from 2009 is formated badly for cut and paste, but I will give a paragraph or two a try.

Tempers flared among D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) students last week when principals handed nearly 400 staff members, including 229 teachers, pink slips in the most drastic reduction in force (RIF) since December 2003. Students at McKinley Tech Senior High School in Northeast left their classrooms in droves to watch their favorite teachers and guidance counselors being escorted out of the building by Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Officers.

..."Dana Vaughn, a mother and aunt of students who attend McKinley, took off from work to come and support her daughter Jessica, a senior at McKinley.

"I'm very upset about how they were fired. They were fired in the middle of their classes and that's what sent these kids into an outrage" said Vaughn who works as a beautician. This is causing mental distress for them, they have to study and work and then they take their teachers out. My child is a senior; she doesn't have a math teacher, or an English teacher. I'm not sure until I come back to check to see what other teachers are gone and who has replaced them," Vaughn, 48, said.

There is more, but it is difficult to interpret with all the weird formatting errors.

Here is more on some of the humiliating terminations, including videos. From NBC Washington:

After Teachers Fired, Students Fire Back

WASHINGTON -- Boisterous students protested outside McKinley Tech High School in northeast Washington Monday in response to a wave of D.C. Public Schools teacher layoffs.

Last week, more than 200 teachers were told their jobs had been eliminated, then escorted out of school buildings by police. The cuts are necessary due to declining enrollment and a $44 million budget deficit, school officials said.

"He (a police officer) didn't even allow me to get my lunch," said Sheila Gill, who has worked in D.C. Public Schools for 32 years and says her record is spotless. "He didn't allow me to get my personal items. He escorted me out of the building and told me I had to get off the parking lot immediately."

...."Today I found out from one of my very good friends that D.C. Public Schools is still hiring," she said. "She just finished the fingerprinting process, so that she could be hired."

"This whole situation has been highly illegal," McKinley senior Ikechukwu Umez-Eronini told NBC4. "The chancellor has been given power that the council members did not have the right to give her. This reduction of force was given without due process of law by any of the citizens here."

They are still hiring....they are hiring TFA and New York Teaching Fellows while laying off teachers with experience who loved their jobs.

Speaking of NYC layoffs

Even as the threat of thousands of teacher layoffs looms, the city is preparing to hire 500 new ones for next fall, officials said.

Critics wonder why the city has accepted the new recruits – 400 from New York City Teaching Fellows and 100 from Teach for America - to work in shortage areas like special education instead of retraining teachers on the payroll.

“It’s mind-boggling that they’re hiring when I may lose my job,” said Marquis Harrison, 25, who started in the city schools with Teach for America nearly three years ago.

Still hiring. Firing teachers, escorting them with police or security guards off the campus. Yet they are still hiring new teachers. That must feel like a slap in the face, and it must break the hearts of those witnessing these fiascos.