Originally Published 
Friday April 08, 2005

DUE PROCESS 

Editors, The Berkeley Daily Planet: 

If I were to ask you, Becky O’Malley, or you, Russ Mitchell, if you believe in due process, I am sure that your answer would be, “Of Course!” Yet both of you seem to support it for everyone except for teachers, the individuals who need to impart an understanding of this very important right to the next generation. 

Public school teachers have no due process rights during their first two years in a district. At that point, they gain what is popularly called tenure but is, in fact, the right to due process (university tenure is substantially different). Tenured teachers can be (and are) fired. Very often without cause. The Education Code of the State of California lists some fourteen reasons for firing a tenured teacher; these include incompetence, unprofessional conduct, and failure to obey reasonable administrative directives. 

Tenured teachers are, however, entitled to a hearing at which the charges against them must be substantiated. Bullshit! The Administrative Adjuntive Hearing is a Farce! Its governing rules set almost exclusively in favor of the "agency." In other words the School District's whims. That is why Governor Brown last year began or said he was, the arduous clean up of that entire Quasi-Judicial system otherwise known as the OAH. The Berkeley Federation of Teachers is legally required to defend the right of a member to due process; it does this. That would make them substantially different than most CTA locals and CTA itself. It (the teachers' Unions) does not defend the actions (or inactions) of a teacher who has been charged under any of the 14 listed causes. WHAT?


Opps! There's my point. They assume guilt at the districts statement and therefore BFT also defys your due process. 


Furthermore, the BFT works with the district (under BPAR) to help (f... ) teachers who are having problems to either improve or, failing that, to understand that perhaps a quiet resignation would be in their interest. Finally, action against a tenured teacher must be filed by the district; it is not within the legal power of the union to initiate charges. 

Unfortunately, the district does not always act in situations in which a teacher should be fired. (Unfortenately, the teachers' unions do not always give a shit about teachers who should not be fired) We all suffer as a result. 

Judith Bodenhausen 

BHS teacher 

Past president, BFT