Officials say it is too expensive to fire teachers in Oklahoma

Monday, February 21st 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- The debate continues over whether rules should be streamlined to allow school districts to more easily dismiss experienced teachers. State law defines a career teacher as one with three straight years of teaching at the same school district.

The process of dismissing an experience teacher can be time-consuming and expensive, according to some. "It is not unusual for the cost to a school district to be in excess of $50,000 to fire a career teacher," said Doug Mann, an attorney for Tulsa Public Schools and several other districts.

Administrators can fire teachers for a number of reasons. But under the Teacher Due Process Act of 1990, they must first admonish teachers in writing, assist them in correcting their performance and give them a "reasonable" amount of time to improve.

The district superintendent may then provide a detailed, written dismissal recommendation to the board of education and has to inform the teacher by certified mail. If the board votes for a firing, it also must notify the teacher who has 10 days to appeal to district court.

In district court, a judge must decide whether to uphold the board's action. Teachers receive full pay and benefits during the appeals process. With some district court cases taking more than a year, that can be expensive for school districts, said Sen. Charles Ford, R-Tulsa.

The Oklahoma Education Association's practice of appealing nearly all teacher firings "is a threat to the school board that you're going to have to pay two teacher salaries" during the appeal period, Ford said. The problem is highlighted by the case of former Tulsa teacher Robert Henderson, whose October 1999 firing was recently upheld by a district court judge.

Henderson, 46, was accused by administrators of threatening and intimidating students and not following school rules. Yet he lingered in the system for 13 years at six different schools. The judge blamed the "failure, inability or lack of courage on the part of some school administrators to do their job and look out for the welfare of their students." But Ford said many districts shy away from getting rid of undesirable teachers for fear of the cost involved.

Ford introduced a bill last session that would put the salary of a teacher undergoing an appeal in escrow. Under that bill, teachers who won their appeals would keep the escrow money and those who lost would surrender the funds to the school districts.

Ford lost that battle, but said he hopes to bring it up again this session. Beth Gooch, president of the Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association, said the process is necessary to protect teachers from unjust firings. She said only about 30 Oklahoma teacher firings have gone to thed istrict court level in the past decade. Her group would fight any effort to change the way teachers' salaries are handled during their appeal, she said.