First in a series
[img]2177|right|Suzanne Robins||no_popup[/img]As a popular former Middle School teacher, first-year School Board member Sue Robins served up a uniquely singular piece of advice on the weeklong nationwide discussion over controversial teacher tenure:
Stay out.
“The most important thing is for us in Culver City not to get caught up in other people’s business,” she said from Oregon where she is holidaying with her husband on a tour of the Pacific Northwest.
“We have great relationships with our union now. I don’t want difficulties going on in other districts to cause any trouble for our relationships.”
Ms. Robins, fondly remembered from her science teaching days in the School District, believes, perhaps not surprisingly, “that teachers ought to have more ability to police themselves.
“I really believe that decisions about who is doing a good job and who is doing evaluations ought to be made not just by administrators but by teachers themselves.
“Truly, the best job of how well someone is doing as a teacher is best made by another teacher in your same subject area,” said Ms. Robins.
Tenure at universities is determined by colleagues, and the same method should work in Culver City schools, she holds. “The decisions of your peers works in the university environment,” Ms. Robins said.
Would she be interested in instituting such a policy?
“I would be interested in having conversations about how to better evaluate our teachers in a fairer manner,” Ms. Robins said.
(To be continued)
