OPS Forced Teacher to Leave Part III

This is the answer to one of our communications with him:


Yes, the materials were for Language Arts grades 7 & 8. I am not aware of any official guidelines for non-curriculum materials. In fact, there is evidence in my files that supplemental materials are encouraged. For example, many of my lesson plans submitted to administration earlier included supplements, and lessons modeled by the English supervisor included personal materials. Also, the English supervisor encouraged me to use human rights issues from the Internet during the earlier administration of CRTs. Thus, I imagine the only guidelines at that time were to use prudence and, of course, not to use any books on the questionable books list without permission. In regard to the challenged section, the Scientific Inquiry paragraph, I wrote the paragraph using the structure of that writing methodology, of which we had a large chart in the classroom. For this, I did not specifically reference materials; the content is common knowledge, but I did notice that similarly scoped data could be found in the school library. Although the quotes and the general information on the first part of the handout were not specifically challenged, these did stem from our literary studies from within the context of the course. I believe materials were used appropriately. One would hope the teacher has reasonable academic freedom to properly use common knowledge in writing composition courses when composing. Of course, this is what I've been asking Omaha Public Schools to comment on, but to this point they have produced no reply. Given the lapse of time, it appears that they just hope I've gone away. However, if OPS is against using Scientific Inquiry in composition courses, I think their mission statement and policies/procedures should be revisited. When a paragraph regarding life issues is questioned, while other supplements go unquestioned, perhaps the public school system's fear is surfacing. Perhaps OPS Board members could initiate change in this regard. We will leave it in God's hands . . . . Terry