Teacher Tenure

The removal of tenured teachers in our public schools are governed by the Teacher Tenure Act 168.102 to 168.130, which lays out procedures that provide our local school boards with the requirements of due process. There are two ways a school board may terminate the employment of a teacher, dismissal or nonrenewal. Dismissal deprives a teacher of property and so it must provide the teacher with due process. Nonrenewal only applies to probationary teachers, subject to the Tenure Act who have not attained tenure yet. (School Employment Law p436). An exception for dismissal called Reduction in Force under G.S. 115C-325(e)(l) or RIF allows the dismissal of a teacher based on a justifiable decrease in teacher positions related to decreased funding,

New teacher contracts are probationary and evaluated annually. Those who have received the appropriate degree but have not successfully achieved a qualifying score on the designated examinations may be issued a two year nonrenewable provisional certificate. Teachers working in the elementary or secondary levels of public education may receive tenure upon completion of their fifth consecutive contract from an individual school district and are eligible for a career continuous professional certificate. Tenure is defined as a permanent contract between the teacher and a school. The legal definition is simple: tenure provides teachers who have demonstrated competence after a probationary period with due process rights before being fired. Tenure laws were created to protect teachers from favoritism and nepotism and ensure that students receive an education subject to political whims or arbitrary administrative decisions. The challenge comes to principals when they are caught in the middle of trying to be fair to good teachers while facilitating the removal of incompetent

More documentation is needed through this process with a record that logs the assistance provided to the teacher, a plan for concerns that must be remediated and a timeline for required improvements. If the teacher makes improvement and meets requirements then administration would re-evaluate and has the option of contract renewal. If the teacher does not improve they would be placed on paid leave and a written notice would be mailed to them via certified mail with a copy of charges and notice of a hearing option. The teacher or the school board may then request a hearing within ten days of this notice. This hearing must take place between twenty to thirty days after the charges are delivered. Within ten days of the hearing, a stenographer must provide the teacher and the school board a full record of the hearing transcript. The school board would be given seven days from receiving this report of the hearing to vote on the teachers continued employment in their school. The board is required to provide a written decision to the teacher within 3 days of the