a say in hiring and firing, or not renewing, teachers. From year to year, there is a policy debate over whether schools should be run from the central office or from the school campus. From year to year, BOE swings from giving full authority to the schools, to yanking it back.
Right now the controversy swirls around whether principals should be given the authority to decide whether a teacher is renewed or not, or whether these kinds of determinations are best left in the hands of the presumably more knowledgeable people at the central office. The PSS legal counsel assures everyone that teachers who are not renewed at one school are eligible for employment at other schools. Board officials are concerned about this issue because, they said, good teachers are being dismissed by ineffective principals or good principals are dismissing ineffective teachers.
If principals aren’t terminating poor teachers for cause and simply not renewing contracts as the easiest way of getting rid of them, then the school system is ill-served if these teachers are given a “second chance” at another school where they can perform the same mediocre service that got them a non-renewal in the first place.
On the other hand, non-renewals are an effective termination tool that doesn’t require much heavy lifting. But you can get rid of a highly effective employee that way as well. The happy medium? Give principals wide-ranging authority to conduct business on campus, while ensuring that appropriate steps will be taken if abuses occur.
But as with all things associated with the CNMI government, hardly any employee is ever terminated for cause, and everyone deserves a “second chance.” Burglars caught red-handed get suspended sentences, and a “second chance” to do it all over again. Even CPA board members who avoid important meetings are evidently deserving of a “second chance.”
The incompetent and the felon get one more chance — at the expense of the community. Plenty second chances, nating accountability.
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Speaking of the patently criminal, burglary figures seem to be running pretty high these days, as are assaults and batteries on residents and tourists. It is hard to imagine that people who break into other people’s houses and places of business are deserving of such leniency.
I wonder. Is this approach driven by the fact that the administration hasn’t budgeted adequately for the probation office, which means there aren’t enough qualified bodies to police these folks once released from Corrections?
According to some people in the know, the revolving door is spinning so fast that we should just leave it open and not bother with the actual processing and rehabilitation of these offenders. Why not save money and time — for the prosecutors, the courts and the witnesses who have been robbed? This could help the government if, instead of trials, the authorities simply fine the perpetrators the amount it would have cost the CNMI to prosecute. This might save valuable resources and plump out the government coffers a bit.
Forgiveness, in any case, is a virtue, but there are limits to everything. The community has endured enough.
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