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BOE decision to revisit principals’ authority lauded
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Posted on Jun 20 2008
Former Teacher Representative Ambrose Bennett has praised the decision of Board of Education to revisit the existing policy on the hiring and firing authority of school principals.
“There has been much concern among teachers over the ‘non-renewal’ policy governed solely by the principal, with no official checks and balances nor due process. The ‘non-renewal without cause’ clause in contracts has created a few dictators because it is wrong and it is not aligned with the standards and expectations of academia,” Bennett said.
He added there is also a concern among teachers as to how a teacher can be deemed unacceptable and not renewed by one principal yet allowed to transfer to another school.
“The teacher is either good or bad but we have created a dichotomy that totally defies the laws of common sense. Yet this is a commonly practiced phenomenon in the CNMI and many times the teachers who transfer are well liked and appreciated by their new principal,” Bennett said in a letter to the BOE.
He said that in the five years he served in the BOE, he could not remember a time when principals were ever subjected to scrutiny “even after I had requested for a review of their power to be checked.”
“Now it comes to pass again that the Board must follow my suggestion of three or four years ago to shift your focus from the constant scrutiny of teachers being either a good or a bad teacher to [sic] whether the principal is a good or a bad principal,” Bennett said.
Another high school teacher had shared the same concern saying that “school principals in the CNMI have too much power…and they’re the ones empowered with hiring and firing responsibility with little oversight.”
Rota board member Denise Tanya King acknowledged that the current system gives principals “tremendous power.”
