6 years later, teacher firing upheld

PROVIDENCE R.I. (WPRI) - A Superior Court judge said a state law requiring school districts to terminate teachers by March 1 may be an "undue burden," but it is up to the General Assembly to rewrite the statute.

A September 28 ruling by Superior Court Judge Susan McGuirl upheld the termination of a Providence high school math teacher, but the city may have to give Bernard McCrink one year of back pay and compensation for health insurance because they fired him in September, missing the March 1 deadline required by law for tenured teachers.

"The Court acknowledges the City's argument that the notice requirement raises difficulties when a tenured teacher commits misconduct justifying immediate termination after the March 1st statutory deadline and puts an undue burden on the school system to be required to pay a teacher they believe should be dismissed," Judge McGuirl wrote. "However, this Court may not 'rewrite the statute by judicial interpretation.' […] It is the responsibility and role of the General Assembly to address these concerns."

• Read the ruling

McCrink, a former math teacher at the troubled Mt. Pleasant High School in Providence, was terminated by the school department in 2006. Since then, his case has gone on a six year legal journal through the school department, the school board, the Rhode Island Department of Education and ultimately the state court system.

In a statement Providence Mayor Angel Taveras said the city plans on appealing the issue of back pay to the Supreme Court this month.

"This decision starkly points out the need to change the state law that mandates a March 1 deadline for terminating teachers the following school year," Taveras said. "We will continue to support our committed teachers in Providence, but those who egregiously fail to do their jobs need to be held accountable.”

It is unclear how much taxpayers will have to pay if the decision is upheld, but the city's law department points to case law that states McCrink would not be entitled to interest on top of the year's salary.

In their legal arguments, the city said it would have been impossible to notify McCrink by the March 1 deadline because the incidents at the heart of the case – failing to file a lesson plan – happened in May.

Long History

In their attempt to terminate McCrink in 2006, the Providence School Department cited five grounds for dismissal:

• Failing to report an absence and leave a lesson plan for the substitute
• Again failure to leave a lesson plan when absent
• Failure to adequately supervise computer use in his classroom
• Inappropriate discussions with students involving exotic dancing
• Solicitation of bribes from students in exchange for grades.

McCrink's lawyer, State Representative John DeSimone, D-Providence did not return a call for comment but in court documents he poked holes in the district's claims.

"From the outset, the School Board's dismissal of Mr. McCrink was beset by procedural flaws which render his termination for the 2006-2007 school year ineffective," DeSimone argued in written material.

In Judge McGuirl's decision, she pointed out the evidence against McCrink for many of the charges was thin. But she wrote that McCrink had a documented history of reprimands over the years for excessive absences and failing to file lesson plans from principals and ruled the school department was on solid legal ground in terminating him for failing to leave lesson plans on two occasions in May when he called in sick.

City Officials said the cost and time spent on upholding the firing has mounted through the years and they are using cases like this one to educate administrators on how to tighten up on the termination process.

The McCrink case is far from the only one in "limbo."

In 2011, Target 12 obtained an internal memo from the Providence School Department that revealed several teachers were still on the payroll, though not teaching, because the administration failed to take proper steps to get rid of them.

The investigation also revealed statewide, only 37 tenured teachers were terminated for cause in the last decade. The numbers show 21 of the 32 school districts never fired a tenured teacher in the last ten years.

Tim White ( twhite@wpri.com ) is the Target 12 investigative reporter for WPRI 12 and Fox Providence. Follow him on Twitter: @white_tim