Dear Editor:
Rumors that I have resigned from my teaching position at Meeker High School are premature, and I would like to clarify my position.
I have earned tenure in the Meeker School District, so I have been offered a contract to return next year. I would very much like to continue teaching, but conditions at the high school have been frustrating, at the least, and at times downright miserable.
I disagree with aspects of the new regime imposed by our superintendent and principal, and I find no evidence of unusual efficacy of that regime in the records or in the research literature.
Administration have isolated me and I have been excluded from discussion of policies and procedures at the high school. I am not allowed to raise questions in staff meetings. I have been threatened with reprimands and with legal action because of findings I reported previously in your newspaper.
On several occasions, the high school principal has made it clear she would prefer that I leave.
The high school principal and some members of the Meeker School Board seem to be of the notion that we are a failing school and require a “turnaround.”
In fact, Meeker High School provides an excellent education as measured by the many opportunities we offer students, their successes and by the du jour be-all end-all measure of success, test scores.
The “turnaround,” nonetheless, is in process. The high school is losing half its present teaching staff, directly or indirectly because of the actions of the new administration.
In the time allotted over the next month, I will try to negotiate working conditions under which I can teach and in which I am allowed to debate issues that should be of concern to this community.
I have been blessed to work with exceptionally skilled and dedicated (and under-appreciated) colleagues in the Meeker School District. It is an enormous privilege and great joy to work with families in Meeker and to help kids learn.
I hope I can continue.
Bob Dorsett, MD
Meeker
