Rhee gains power to fire schools’ central office staffers

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on Tuesday was granted increased authority to terminate underperforming employees in the school system’s central office, a move Rhee and Mayor Adrian Fenty had seen as an important step in their efforts to turn around D.C.’s struggling schools.

A majority of D.C. Council members supported a mayoral bill with modifications from Council Chairman Vincent Gray.

Gray’s alternate legislation, based on a proposal to change the status of 488 staff members to make firing easier, added stipulations that workers receive performance evaluations before being ousted and distinguished between employees in place for more than and less than a year.

The vote, which followed significant debate, was 10 - 3 in favor of the altered legislation, with Councilmen Phil Mendelson, Marion Barry and Harry Thomas Jr. dissenting and instead backing a failed proposal hailed by the unions as more friendly to workers’ rights.

That proposal would have only allowed the chancellor to get rid of managers within the nonteaching, nonunion ranks and would have given targeted employees the option to be trained for other positions in the system rather than being fired.

Council members in Gray’s court said a more drastic approach was warranted. At-large Councilman David Captain said the chairman’s version “strikes an appropriate balance.”

Councilman Kwame Brown said he has had personal experience with the inefficiencies of poor-performing central office workers.

“This may not be the perfect solution, but if we continue down the same path, we’ll get the same results,” he said.

Under the legislation, employees hired less than a year ago and not covered by a collective bargaining unit can be terminated at any point, while those employed more than one year have to have been evaluated within the past six months and will get 15 days’ notice before being fired.

Rhee told reporters the changes set a precedent and give her the kind of power a leader needs to make significant improvements.

With regard to Gray’s revisions, the chancellor said she feels “extraordinarily good about the new language.”

“What was passed allows us to do everything we proposed within the original legislation,” she said.

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com

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