Johns Encourages School Board to Support Teachers’ Continuing Contracts

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Chairman At-Large Milt Johns of the Prince William County School Board took a position on continuing contracts for Virginia educators, and asked the other School Board members to do the same before they speak with Virginia legislators next week.

“As you know there’s been a lot of discussion in legislature about changing continuing contract, then there was some discussion about eliminating continuing contracts and then there was discuss about extending probationary periods for continuing contract,” Johns told the Board.

Johns said he personally supports the current regulation that allows for teachers to receive a continuing contracts* after three years within a school district.

“My personal belief is that I think we do not need to make changes to continuing contract at least as far as the proposals that I have heard as far as extending the probation period, or doing away with continuing contract,” Johns said, during Supervisors Time at the Jan. 16 School Board Meeting.

He asked that other School Board Members solidify their position before the next meeting, at which time he might conduct a poll to see how they stand on the issue.

Should the majority of the School Board want to keep continuing contracts as they are, they can voice that opinion to General Assembly members. Johns said he has already drafted a resolution that said they do not believe, “changes to the current framework for continuing contracts are appropriate at this time.”

The Prince William Education Association posted a response to John’s decision on its Facebook page.

“Huge News Members (sic)! Milt Johns is proposing a resolution to the PWCS School Board that they take a position that we don't believe there should be changes to the framework of continuing contract AND the probationary period should NOT be extended from 3 to 5 years!!!"

 *Correction: Continuing contracts are not the same as "tenure," as implied in previous editions of this article. In the legal sense, continuing contracts offers less job protection, and a teacher can still loss his or her job for bad performance and/or failure to adhere to policy. 

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