Schools Chancellor Joel Klein yesterday ordered principals to flunk teachers who perform poorly during this summer’s session.
Instructors who receive “satisfactory” job ratings for two consecutive summer terms get seniority rights, which allow them to automatically be rehired.
Klein told principals it would be a “disservice” to stick struggling students – nearly all in jeopardy of being held back unless they pass the second-chance summer session – with incompetent teachers.
Teachers who receive unsatisfactory ratings do not have the right to teach in the following year’s summer program.
“If in your judgment the employee’s performance during the summer is not satisfactory,” Klein said in a memo to principals, “it is imperative that you give that individual an unsatisfactory rating.”
Only 624 out of 80,000 teachers received unsatisfactory ratings during the regular 2002-03 school year.
And union officials are predicting that the numbers for the school year that just ended will be about the same.
“I’ve never heard of a teacher getting a U [unsatisfactory] rating during summer school,” said one veteran high school teacher.
In the past, the Department of Education focused during the summer months mostly on recruiting enough teachers to cover classes, not grading them.
Figures weren’t immediately available on how many teachers were flunked during the 2003 summer school program.
But the fact that Klein is discussing the issue with principals indicates that very few teachers got an F last summer, sources close to the chancellor said.