In an effort to prevent tax increases, the RSU/MSAD 40 School Board and district voters approved a 2011/12 school budget that includes the elimination of several teaching and administrative positions.
Among those positions is one of the three art teacher positions at Medomak Valley High School. On May 10, Supt. Frank Boynton notified teacher Krisanne Baker on May 10 that she was being transferred to the elementary school system.
Baker, who has taught at MVHS for 12 years, will teach at three different elementary schools around the district, she said in an interview on June 8 in her ceramics room at MVHS.
Baker feels that her involuntary transfer represents a breach of her contract, and is concerned about what this cut will mean for the future of the MVHS art program.
Boynton could not comment on specifics of Baker’s case, but said in a telephone interview June 11 that whenever staff adjustments are made, “I try to gather as much information as I can. I try to work with people.”
“I try to make it work as best I can and do everything in the best interest of the children,” Boynton said.
On previous occasions, Boynton said that the decision to cut from the art department was based on enrollment in art classes as they compared to other subjects.
Baker’s concerns about the future stem from a fear that this cut will lead to further decrease in enrollment in art classes, which will in turn open the department up to further cuts.
Currently, Baker teaches clay, digital media, drawing, painting and printmaking, and because of the nature of the material she teaches, she doesn’t think elementary school education will be suitable.
“I’m teaching professional-level skills,” Baker said. She compared her move to elementary school art to asking a physics teacher to teach kindergarten.
In the ceramics room, Baker recalled a student of hers who won artist of the year several years ago. That student is now in her residency at medical school.
“She’s been told she has the best sense of touch,” Baker said of her former student. “She can feel where the pain is and where the tumor is. She told me that she got that touch from working on the wheel in my art class.”
Art classes allow students to explore different avenues of expression and different approaches to skills like problem solving, Baker said. She views her role as a teacher as a responsibility to help students find their own best path.
“You need good art teachers at all levels,” she said. “But my passion comes from helping kids find their direction in life, and I can’t do that in an elementary school.”
Based on enrollment in her classes and the testimony of current and former students, parents and her fellow teachers, it appears she’s been fairly successful.
At a school board meeting on May 20, shortly after the decision was made to transfer Baker, dozens of people came forward to speak on her behalf. Her supporters submitted a petition with over 200 signatures and lobbied the principal.
At a school assembly on May 25, about 75 students staged a walkout in protest of her transfer.
At the public meeting to approve the proposed RSU/MSAD 40 budget on June 1, a handful of teachers and district residents attempted to amend the budget to add Baker’s salary back into the regular instruction budget.
That amendment failed, but School Board Chairwoman Bonnie Davis-Micue said that even if it had passed, it would not have reinstated Baker’s position at the high school.
“That money would have gone into the regular instruction budget and been used wherever it was needed most,” Davis-Micue said after that meeting. The elementary schools need the extra budget more than the high school, she said.
“The high school gets all the attention because it’s your centerpiece,” she said. “But when we’re struggling to keep elementary school classes under 21 or 22 kids, I’m not in favor of putting resources towards keeping high school classes at 14 or 15 kids.”
One aspect of Baker’s story is her contention that her transfer appears to qualify as a breach of contract.
The district’s teachers are currently in negotiations with district administrators for a new teaching contract. That process has been underway for more than a year, and Boynton did not want to speculate on when it might be completed.
“I don’t want to say anything that could jeopardize negotiations,” he said.
Currently, teachers are still working under the stipulations of the old contract.
The old contract outlines five qualifications that must be taken into consideration when a teaching position is being eliminated. Baker’s transfer qualifies as elimination because she is being transferred involuntarily, Boynton said.
When the district set out to eliminate a teaching position at the high school and move that teacher to the elementary school, a decision had to be made between Baker and another art teacher, neither of which volunteered to take the transfer, Boynton said.
In deciding between two teachers, Boynton is required to consider each of the following criteria: certification; documentation from the state certifying that a teacher is “highly qualified” by state standards; length of service in their current position and total number of years teaching; performance evaluations; and quality of teaching.
Those five criteria are meant to be held equally, Baker said. The contract doesn’t specify that they should be considered in any particular order or give any criteria more importance than any other.
Libbie Winslow, an art teacher at Medomak Middle School, was the co-president of the teacher’s union when the contract was drafted. Winslow agreed with Baker that the intention of the language was to give equal weight to all five criteria, but acknowledged that it doesn’t specifically instruct administrators to do so.
“I hope this is a point they look at revising in the new contract,” Winslow said.
In Baker’s case, Boynton did not fully consider any of the five criteria except length of service, Baker and Winslow said.
When asked what criteria he used to make his decision, Boynton again declined to comment on the specifics of Baker’s case and reiterated that he gathers as much information as possible when making any personnel decision.
If Boynton did not look at performance reviews or gather information on quality of teaching, Baker’s transfer qualifies as a breach of contract, Winslow said.
Baker and Winslow both believe that Boynton would not have made the decision he did had he taken quality of teaching into consideration.
Baker has two less years of teaching experience than the other teacher. Baker and Winslow believe that this is the only criterion that Boynton used to differentiate between the two art teachers.
“Krisanne has created this fantastic program and has a fantastic rapport with students,” Winslow said. Baker’s classes have consistently full enrollment, and she is the only art teacher at MVHS qualified to teach them, Winslow said.
Baker has certification and teaching experience in all of the art subjects taught at MVHS.
Boynton told Baker that he didn’t look at performance reviews because he talked to people at the school and observed classes, Baker said. “He never came into any of my classes,” she said.
