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SCF Does Away with Tenure-like Protection for School

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LAKEWOOD RANCH – At Tuesday’s meeting, the State College of Florida’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to do away with the practice of "continuing contracts," which are a tenure-like protection afforded to highly-effective teachers at the local institution (formerly Manatee Community College) who undergo rigorous vetting to achieve the status.

More than 40 members of the school’s faculty, retired educators, students and members of the public showed up to demonstrate their opposition to a policy that has been widely lampooned in the educational community. The decision has also been criticized by the League of Women Voters, and has received negative editorial recommendations in all local newspapers, including The Bradenton Times.

Eleven people gave public comment at the meeting, all of which was harshly critical of the proposed policy, claiming it would discourage the best qualified instructors from seeking employment at the school.
 
They argued that such discouragement which could then create a domino effect in which the best students were discouraged from applying, leading to both falling enrollment and performance metrics at what has long been a highly-successful academic institution.
 
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Herb Firth taught at SCF for 48 years. He’s retired now and thus unaffected by the change in policy. Yet Firth has been one of the most vocal critics of the policy. Firth railed against the trustees, saying, "I am here tonight not to persuade or cajole but to denounce your action as self-serving, unethical, and by extension, because of your reckless disregard for the likely harm that you are doing to individuals and families, immoral."

One of the continuing criticisms of the board was that they had at no time during the process of advertising and moving forward in the process presented any coherent or convincing arguments or evidence as to how eliminating the process–which costs the school no money–would benefit teachers, students, the community or the institution at large. The trustees again offered no explanation on Tuesday.

The motion to eliminate the policy passed by a unanimous vote. Board chair Ed Bailey said that the board would schedule a work session at some future date at which they would try to work with faculty and discuss the possibility of options such as multi-year contracts. Many instructors present lamented that the board did not seek such interaction prior to eliminating continuing contracts.
 
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