Firing of teachers in spotlight following case in Antwerp
A teacher in Zoersel has returned to work after her dismissal was overturned by the College of Appeal, and the Council of State has rejected a motion for an urgent judgement
Should Flanders make it easier to sack teachers who receive poor reviews?
Head resigns in protest
The reason the head has resigned is because, even after delivering two serious warnings, she has been unable to sack the teacher. After the last warning in May, which led directly to a dismissal, the teacher took her case to the College of Appeal.
The body overturned the sacking, and the principal, as promised when the case was being considered, has resigned.
The situation has started up a conversation in Flanders about both the positives and negatives of tenure. At first glance, the Zoersel case seemed open and shut. One of the negative evaluations against the teacher reads: “She cannot plan ahead or prepare her classwork, she is not open to criticism and does not work well with colleagues. She has an immature approach and is unable to achieve the goals of the teaching plan.”
Her return to the school, the counsel for the school district argued in front of the Council of State, would adversely affect the pupils and damage the reputation of the school itself.
“It may not be impossible to sack a teacher, but it is difficult,” says Marie-Jeanne Baelmans of VLVO, the federation of Flemish education managers. “Cases like this come up from time to time, though not often. The evaluation process always has to be strictly followed, but the moment the College of Appeal decides that some aspect of the procedure wasn’t correctly followed, then the dismissal doesn’t go ahead.”
Motion dismissed
Following the College ruling, the municipality of Zoersel took the case to the Council of State, joined by the principal. They claimed the need for an urgent ruling to overturn the College’s decision. Their motion was filed on 14 July, with the new school year due to begin on 1 September.
The documents in the case told the story of the teacher’s time at the school, which started in 2000 but only seemed to go wrong from the 2013-2014 school year. In May that year the school was confronted with a number of complaints from parents about the teacher, who as well as being the form teacher for year two also taught ICT to other years.
It may not be impossible to sack a teacher, but it is difficult
Her worst offence seems to have been to miss a case conference on a girl whose move to year three was at risk. Those events led to the first negative evaluation, followed a year later by the second and her dismissal.
The Council of State, however, rejected the motion for an immediate judgement, arguing that the problem had first presented itself in May the previous year, weakening the case for an urgent response. The Council was also dismissive of the threat made by the principal to resign if the teacher were to return to the school.
The principal, the court said, was “reckoning on her own future behaviour in an attempt to show that the case is an urgent one”. The court also pointed out that any damage to the reputation of the school or the head could adequately be undone by a ruling in due course overturning the decision of the College of Appeal.
That, according to Council of State spokesperson Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove, is the point so far ignored by reports on how it is impossible to get rid of a bad teacher. The Council of State never ruled on the question at the root of the case, only on the matter of treating it with urgency.
The municipality and the school, he said, can still file a new complaint requesting that it overturn the decision of the College of Appeal.
Photo by Ingimage
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Educational system
million school-going children in 2013
million euros Flemish education budget for new school infrastructures in 2013
percent of boys leaving secondary school without a diploma
- Education in Flanders
- Secondary education reform
- European Encyclopaedia on National Education Systems
