WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) -- After two teachers were suddenly dismissed from a Wilmington charter school, parents, students and faculty are speaking out.
According to the Cape Fear Center for Inquiry's school motto, promoting a sense of community through question-based learning is what they strive to achieve. However, some parents say their inquiries have been ignored.
“When decisions are being made and we don't know about them, or we have questions or concerns and they're not addressed, then that brings up issues,” said Amy ball, a parent of three at the charter school.
Ball was just one of many who spoke out Tuesday night during a school board meeting about their dislike for how the board handled dismissing two long-time teachers just weeks before school ended.
“I do feel that the timing-15 days before the end of school that their teachers were told this was a pretty poor decision,” said Ball.
Second and third grade teacher Jan Tremon-Jenkins and seventh and eighth grade teacher Teresa Lamb were told that their contracts would not be renewed for personnel issues. Lamb was the only one who decided to stay through the end of the year.
“This is evidence of a time when the choice to not renew the contract of two teachers has really polarized the community and it's unfortunate,” said Beth Carter, a teacher at the charter school.
Ball says it wasn't fair to the students.
“It effected them drastically,” said Ball. “The second graders-many of them were just devastated.”
Many say they feel a lack of communication between the board, parents and faculty. Ball says she hopes that things will return to how they were when the school first opened more than a decade ago.
“When a decision was on the table, it would be like how can we accomplish this and try to find every way that we can, whereas now it seems like that can't be done,” said Ball.
Members of the board have said that parent concerns about the timing of teacher dismissals will be considered in the future.
I did not attend the
I did not attend the meeting, but do know that what was said was VERY one sided and concentrated too much on how Corrigan conducts his school. I have no problem with him other than the situation WAS handled poorly. That being said, in our case, the letting go of the teacher was necessary. People concerned with how their children felt after the decision have no idea the pain and struggles the children who were not being taught properly had to go through for the entire year. Their child may have been upset for a day or two but my child had been upset for the entire year. Do her feelings not matter now? Feelings of being left out and not listened to? I'm ready for a new year and for all the drama to settle down. Those who are truly concerned may need to find another school or try homeschooling so their children can be sheltered from any realities of life. The school's image has now been tarnished due to the speaking out of all these "concerned" parents and it's a shame...
Big Picture
It is not necessarily about the teachers. Anyone can lose their job, we get it. Did it have to be done in front of the students just days before EOGs? Couldn't it have been done after the school day instead of at the beginning? Corrigan has shown a pattern of bad decisions and this is just one of them. He has broken by laws and lied. He has called the mother's at our school "chatty women" and referenced a students "cute factor". He is unprofessional and discriminatory. He has no concern for the social curriculum. He needs to go. I am sure we can find a passionate Director that buys into our community for $81,000 per year. And the parent that said Ms Lambe was a bad teacher, his kid has been to 5 different schools, what does that tell you. His kid has issues.
For such an uproar over
For such an uproar over these dismissals, it seems strange that people don't have a clue as to what the teachers did. "Personnel issues" obviously isn't good enough for the parents. What happened over there, and who is next?
"what happened over there"
What happened is that a director with few social skills and no understanding of inquiry or the school's social curriculum dumped two teachers who were brave enough to stand up to him. The admin at CFCI got raises last year while teachers haven't had raises in three- now 4- years. The admin tried to cut things like field trips (in the school's charter as one of the ways they are different), supply money, and teacher salaries- all the while, as was revealed last night, spending $ on paying for movers for themselves (teachers an parents moved themselves). In the case of at least one of the teachers there was absolutely no action plan or other procedure used to cause her to lose contract other than the word of the admin team. There was no opportunity for either teacher to answer any charges made against them or to present rebuttal information to the board.
People familiar with Ms. Teresa and Mrs. T-J know them to be good teachers. People familiar with Brian Corrigan know him to be rude, reactive, and unpleasant to deal with. Since he came the school has lost much of its friendly community feeling and has started feeling more and more like a traditional NHC school. The whole reason for the school is to avoid that- but with Corrigan at the helm, I don't think there's any hope of avoiding it.
Many parents like myself can tell you that there's no way to move forward until the director moves out.
shame
It is a shame that you feel there is no way to move forward...that shows a lack an understanding of the very social curriculum which is at the core of the school.
Actually, most people who know find Mr. Corrigan, including myself and other parents and community members whom I am familiar, find him to be a dedicated educator, a capable administrator, a good father and a fine person. I find it reprehensible that a small group of reactive parents can cause such an disruption in our school. The fact is the administrative team, which is both capable and experienced, run the school in the best interest of the school and all the students in the school... parents are focused on a much smaller picture,which is fine because parents should look out for their children. However, parents should not pretend that their child is the only child in the school or that their experiences are the only valid experiences.
CFCI is a school of choice and if any parent sees no way to move forward with Mr. Corrigan than I would suggest they consider making a different choice and stop causing a disruption in our school community that jeopardizes its very existence. To do otherwise seems to be forcing their choices on the rest of the community with no basis for these choices other than their own self-intrests.
The Director needs to go!
This school went downhill when the new Director Brian Corrigan came. He doesn't know anything about the school's mission or vision. They even talked about him getting one day worth of traiing in the school's social beliefs last night. One day isn't enough.
Shouldn't that have been one of the qualifications they looked for BEFORE he was hired? The board that hired him and the board that's allowing him to stay there should both be ashamed. He took quality teachers out of the kids' classrooms. The only way to have the mission and vision as the focus now is to get him out of there and put someone in place who really understands what the school is about.
Administration
I understand that Brian Corrigan was one of only two applicants that applied for the position of Director three years ago at CFCI. The other applicant withdrew her submitted application. He came with only three years' experience at a middle school that was failing and closing. This is telling. The HRC comes from numerous years in a traditional system, which is clearly evident. To my knowledge, he has never been trained in Inquiry-based education or its practices. When is this board and any other CFCI board going to stop taking shortcuts and do the job in which they were charged?
Seems to me...
... the solution to this is to clean house with the administration... if they're making choices that are so poor, then why are they still there? Evidently these were great teachers, based on the comments made last night... clearly the administration made a bad choice (political reasons, since it clearly wasn't teaching?) and shouldn't be able to make any other bad choices in the future. The only way to ensure they don't is to get them out of there.
Teachers Dismissed
Ball says it wasn't fair to the students.
“It effected them drastically,” said Ball. “The second graders-many of them were just devastated.”
Give me a break. I bet her kids do no wrong. Who said life is fair? Devastated, how is that? Kids will end up serving time because of this event.
I am sorry when anybody looses their job, but come on drama queen, give me a break.
CFCI
Mrs. Ball is far from a "drama queen". In our community teachers and students form very close bonds and we are like family. The administration and unfortunately the current board doesnt seem to understand this. We also teach our children to care about peope which did lead to them being very upset. The other issue is that Ms
. Teresa is considered possibly the best teacher at Cfci so the general feeling is that she brought up truths that the admin team did not want to hear and the board did not put the children first.
The media attention given to
The media attention given to our school has been very one sided. Not all the parents and community members at the meeting last night were against the board. We know from experience that the non-renewal of one of the teachers' contracts was the right decision. As much as we want to announce her incompetencies we won't. Just know that this has been years in the making and CFCI will be a better school without her.
Changes for children are
Changes for children are hard on the parents as well, however, truly concerned parents will use this opportunity to teach their children that difficulties and unexpected turns-of-events are part of life. How you teach your children to deal with this change in their lives will have more of a lasting effect than any day with their classmates or teacher. The foundation of how to deal with a friend that suddenly moves away or a crush that is now interested in someone else can start as early as second grade. Be good parents - teach them that they can survive something that doesn't go their way and still be JUST FINE!