First-year teachers sue district after losing jobs

Three former first-year Clark County teachers have filed lawsuits alleging their contracts were not renewed after principals gave them bad evaluations but no feedback on how to improve.

The similar but separate lawsuits were filed in June and July in District Court by the Clark County Classroom Teachers Association and three rookie teachers from the 1997-98 school year: Robert Ain, a math teacher at Silverado; Judith Bolick, a fifth-grade teacher at Herron Elementary; and Amy Held, a fifth-grade teacher at Beatty Elementary.

Bolick, Held and Ain, who made $22,603 in his first teaching job, according to court documents, are suing to get their jobs back.

The lawsuit points to state laws that say the school district must make a "reasonable effort" to help new recruits.

One lawsuit says the school district "failed to exert any reasonable effort to assist Ms. Bolick in correcting the alleged deficiencies noted in her performance evaluation, failed to provide Ms. Bolick an opportunity to improve her alleged deficient performance and failed to provide any assistance otherwise required by its own policy."

School district lawyer Bill Hoffman declined to discuss the pending case.

But Hoffman filed an answer in the Ain lawsuit that denies the district did not try help the teacher, a 46-year-old, 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. The district's answer asks the court to dismiss the lawsuits.

The lawsuit contains Ain's three evaluations, which say he never had complete control of his students.

"Mr. Ain has been receptive to suggestions from the administration and has demonstrated a willingness to work toward overcoming the negative aspects of his teaching performance," one evaluation said. It adds that Ain was not dealing with "off-task and inappropriate behavior in the classroom."

Two teachers could not be reached for comment. One declined to discuss the case on the record. Attorneys for the teachers and the teacher's union also declined to discuss the lawsuits in detail.

At the heart of the lawsuits is a complaint shared by some first-year teachers: that district administrators do not give them enough feedback beyond a few evaluations. Some new teachers say they need more mentorship as they struggle through their first year of teaching.

George Ann Rice, the district's chief hiring officer, declined to discuss the lawsuits. But she said the district this year established a program that puts one teacher at each school in charge of pairing veteran teachers with first-year teachers.

"It's been absolutely impossible in the past because of our huge numbers for us to try to find somebody for every new teacher," Rice said. "We hit upon this as a compromise solution to hopefully yield the same results."

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