DeKalb County School District Superintendent Cheryl Watson-Harris apologized this week for the “upsetting and questionable” job descriptions sent to about 7,000 employees with their contracts earlier this month.
On March 1, the district issued contracts to school-based staff for the 2022-2023 school year in a packet that included a job description with a list of 10 “performance factors” that confused many recipients.
“That was not our intention, but that’s the way it was received,” Watson-Harris said at a board meeting this week.
The description, which mostly focuses on productivity, included assertions that employees should have the ability to:
- Maintain composure and not compound a situation when interacting with persons who may be angry, demanding, or otherwise less than polite.
- Ignore irrelevant sights or sounds and intrusive thoughts or stimuli.
- Seldom be absent from work.
- Maintain relationships not characterized by high levels of hostility, social withdrawal or failure to communicate.
The language in the job description is actually “decades old,” but caught teachers off guard because they don’t usually see it when they sign their contracts, said Deborah Jones, president of the Organization of DeKalb Educators.
“The reaction was, ‘How can they put this in our contract?’” she said. “It was too vague.”
The district organized multiple meetings with teachers to clear up questions.
But this week, Board of Education members had questions, too.
“What are you all doing to get rid of the subjective language?” asked board member Joyce Morley. “When you start making statements about people’s thoughts — how do you know about people’s thinking process?”
The district’s legal counsel and human resources staff are reviewing the language in the job description “with additional updates forthcoming,” a district spokeswoman said in an email.
“I apologize to all staff members that were confused,” Watson-Harris told the board, echoing a statement she had already sent to employees.
“We want our staff members to always have information ahead of time and opportunities to ask any questions that they need,” she said.
The language in the contract mostly matches the 2020 general job description for teachers that’s posted on the district’s hiring website. One key difference is the 2022 description stresses that teachers need to be able to pivot to online learning when needed.
Of the 6,918 contracts that were sent out, 89% had been signed and returned by Tuesday, a district spokeswoman said.
The deadline to return the contracts was extended to Friday.
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