The Island community has been watching with interest the dialogue between a veteran teacher credentialed by the state to be considered eligible for a position of assistant principal or principal and the public school administration. It would appear that the issue is one of “fit” on the part of administration rather than one of legally required academic credentials. However, the commonwealth of Massachusetts does require academic credentials for all teaching and administrative positions and those requirements are carefully crafted to reflect the fact that the state mandates and requires that all those engaged in educating children in our public schools should have completed specified academic course work followed by a practicum supervised by a qualified or licensed person. This is a legal requirement and not a matter of choice. There is no system of apprenticeship whereby a favored person can take a position for which they have no academic preparation and learn on the job. The only exception to these clearly defined expectations is when the school administration has made every effort to recruit a qualified person holding the certification granted by the Massachusetts department of education and has failed to find such a person. Then they may apply for a waiver, a legally binding document, which essentially allows the school administration to waive the state’s requirements because they are unable to meet them and an unqualified/unlicensed person may be hired for one year. Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 71,s.38G states: “No person shall be eligible for employment as a teacher, professional support, personnel or administrator unless he or she has been granted by the commissioner an education license with respect to the type of position for which he or she seeks employment.” It further states that: “To qualify for a waiver you must demonstrate that you made a good faith effort to hire a licensed educator. Documentation of these efforts must be retained by the district.”

It is my understanding that such waivers have been sought and granted for this year from the state. As part of the documentation required by the state when granting a waiver the district must supply details of any qualified, licensed educators who applied for the position, and an “explanation of why they were not appropriately qualified to perform the duties.” If such an explanation was given to the commonwealth, it was not reported in the newspaper, nor was it apparently given to the licensed applicant for the position or the school committee.

The Education Reform Act places responsibility for school management on the local school district, but mandates standards that must be met by that district. The emphasis on hiring appropriately educated and certified staff is meant to maintain high and impartial standards of education in the interests of improving public schools in every part of Massachusetts. The standards which every applicant for an administrative position must be able to meet are available online from the department of education, and are not difficult to understand or shrouded in mystery or even open to misinterpretation. Massachusetts sets high standards and requires graduate credits in school administration before they grant a license for the position of principal or assistant principal. The adherence to strict standards of education for teaching licenses and administrative licenses is possibly why our state leads the nation in the thrust to improve public education.

What then is the value of appropriate certification for a position? In the case of a teacher of any subject in our Island school system, it is mandated that the teacher should know their content area and be able to teach it. Without being able to demonstrate such mastery, no teacher can receive a positive evaluation of their performance. Our community supports such adherence to appropriate preparation. Do any of us want an absolutely wonderful person with whom we feel comfortable but who has no credentials in teaching math, for example, teaching our children mathematics? There are many good pedagogical reasons why we want our teachers to know their topic well and to be able to communicate that information, not least the fact that every teacher has at one time or another prepared a wonderful lesson that flops in the classroom. Without a sound knowledge of content, the teacher then flounders and the lesson is lost, but knowing the content enables the teacher to regroup and present the information in a wholly different way. If these are the standards to which we expect our teachers to conform then should we be asking less from those who wish to become administrators in our school system? Should we really be saying licensure or qualification in the area of school administration is unimportant because the necessary skills can be learned on the job?

The issue, as I understand it from the Island newspapers, is a question of whether unlicensed candidates can be hired to an administrative position (assistant principals) when appropriately licensed people are available? Massachusetts state law seems to say that cannot happen, and so is the law being broken when waivers are sought from the state to hire unlicensed people on the basis that no qualified person is available? This question of certification versus personal preference is a vexed one but would any of us consult a personable medical student whose company we enjoyed to perform surgery on us rather than a qualified doctor? That analogy makes the issue a little clearer.

A disturbing aspect of the dispute, as reported, is the question of oversight. Is anyone, or any institution, above the law in Massachusetts? Is there anyone, even the governor, who is not subject to oversight? From my understanding of the events reported in the newspaper, it would appear the up-Island school committee considers the school administration to be the final arbiters of all their actions. In other words, they suggest that the school administration is above the law and in fact can set its own parameters to its own satisfaction. This brings up so many constitutional questions of the rights of a community to preserve oversight on all its employees, and the duty of its elected representatives to provide that oversight. It is a negation of their duty to refuse to accept their responsibility and simply to say that the issues brought before them were beyond their purview. If that is the case, then whose purview is it to investigate these serious issues that impact our schools and our children?

A West Tisbury resident, Joel Weintraub has taught in New York city, England, West Tisbury and now teaches in Providence, R.I.