At last Thursday’s school board meeting, Warrington Middle School principal Denny Wilson pointed out how the Florida Department of Education rules hurt the students.
Before the 2019-2020 school year, DOE required nine teachers to be transferred out nine teachers out of Warrington Middle School. Wilson said, “Seven of them were ‘needs improvement.’ I wrote a dissertation requesting that five of the teachers who earned a rating of “needs improvement” be allowed to remain at Warrington Middle School. These five teachers just finished their first year of teaching, and they all desperately wanted to remain at Warrington Middle, and they love their students.”
DOE rejected the request because the state rule requires only effective and highly effective teachers to be at Warrington Middle or any school in turnaround status.
“The major fail of this rule is that it does nothing to ensure equity or guarantee high-quality instruction every day,” Wilson said. “The assumption is that when these teachers are transferred out of the school; they are replaced quickly with a teacher rated effective or highly effective. That does not happen. As we all know, we have been experiencing a teacher shortage for several years. What happens is they’re replaced with another beginning teacher with no VAM rating, a teacher from another state with no VAM rating, or a substitute teacher. The rule has created constant turnover. An effective or highly effective VAM rating does not always ensure the highest quality instruction every day.”
He continued, “In the summer of 2021, when I was employed as principal of Warrington Middle, we were able to recruit several effective and highly effective teachers, and six have been with us for the last couple of years and are amazing. One of those that was recruited did not make it through the first nine weeks. The other left at the semester. It requires uniquely gifted individuals to successfully teach and build relationships with students that face issues related to poverty, trauma, and the lack of academic success. A VAM rating of effective or highly effective does not mean an individual will be successful in a school in turnaround. They must also be highly effective at building meaningful relationships with their students.”
Wilson objected to how the proposed charter school operator, CharterUSA, described his faculty and staff: “The school is academically, socially, physically, and emotionally failing students and the community.”
“This is an unbelievable statement,” said Wilson. “There is no other way to put it than it’s just absolutely wrong. We did not get the results we wanted on the state assessment in 2022 and were only able to move up from a 33 to a 37. But I want to make it clear that the Rocket family that has been working in the mission field located on 450 South Old Corry Field Road, known as Warrington Middle, for the last two years, and some for much longer, have not given up on our students and families, and we are still fighting the good fight. Our goal this year is that no one will be able to say that we did not finish strong.”