Music teacher's contract not renewed

TEN SLEEP – Monday evening the Ten Sleep School Board voted to not renew Ten Sleep School music teacher Karen Loveland’s contract despite angry community member’s opposition.

Ten Sleep Board members Terril Mills and Jared Lyman voted in favor of renewing Loveland’s contract with Chuck Powell, Jane Thurston and Tess Greet voting against.

Before the vote was taken Loveland spoke to the board on her own behalf stating that she knows that she is not a perfect teacher that she makes mistakes but that she does the best she can. “I was told that the reason I’m being asked to resign, and I am not going to resign, you guys will own it, if I’m gone you own it. I will not resign. But I was told it’s because I do not have a high school program. I do have two children in high school that do take music and I’m an important part of their life. I also spend a morning; I spend every first period with a kid one-on-one. I’m an important person in that child’s life. I have asked repeatedly and worked and tried to figure out a way that the schedule would work and haven’t had the support that I needed.

“My kids can sing, they can play, they are making progress. I’ve had your children and your grandchildren, I may not be their favorite teacher and, yes, there are kids that don’t like me, but that’s OK, not every kid is going to like everybody. Not everybody is going to like me, but that’s not what it’s about. You want your kids only to deal with people they like? That doesn’t work, that’s not real life. I’ve done the best job that I can do and I have not had a bad evaluation, actually I’ve had one observation, one formal observation, in three years. My evaluation was not completed. It started last Monday and we went through points and he [Ten Sleep School Principal Russell Budmayr] said OK you’re right on that, that’s not correct, I need to fix that. It didn’t get fixed, the next day I was called in and told I was not going to be recommended for renewal and I asked why and it was because I don’t have a high school program,” Loveland said. “I don’t have a high school program because, for one, there has to be a foundation. For two, I didn’t go out recruiting kids for a high school program because I didn’t understand that that was expected of me. I saw this; I need to teach children music so that they can make the connection in their brain so that that they can gain skills, so that they can succeed in academics. If a high school kid doesn’t want to be in music, so what? They don’t have to be in music. I’m not going to have a period of play time. That’s not the way it works. I love these kids and I work hard,” she added.

Loveland went on to explain that not having a high school program was never an issue until two weeks ago. That no one in administration had spoken to her about putting a program in place or creating a plan for improvement. “I don’t think these are informed decisions and I don’t think it’s what’s good for the kids, it’s not good for the staff. The thing that makes a difference in the school is the environment, the climate of the school. When the faculty and the staff doesn’t know when they are going to be fired and know what they are going to be fired for, that’s an unstable environment. That’s not safe or fair for the students or for the faculty,” Loveland stated.

Community member John Gerstner stated that he was completely against not renewing Loveland’s contract because the high school students’ schedules did not allow for music. “We have all these requirements to meet, the Hathaway scholarship to go to the universities or any other path to education, the music teacher can’t compete with that. You need to establish a curriculum outline guide that she can compete with, so that kids that do want to be in music can be there. But no, all you want to do is terminate, terminate, terminate, resign that’s what we are reading in the news. That’s not good for our school district. We saw a Christmas program by this music teacher and I heard more comments, ‘that’s a great program.’ She can’t develop a high school program that’s been dropped in the past, you can’t just make musicians overnight out of all the high school kids. She’s got three or four kids that can maybe play an instrument in high school. But now we want her to just automatically create a high school music program? She can’t do that, she’s in competition with all the classes that are required to graduate and get a Hathaway scholarship,” Gerstner said.

Community member Ed Cooper expressed his displeasure with the board and what he feels has become a cycle of collusion and coercion to force teachers to resign naming specific teachers who he and others feel were forced to resign. He asked the board several questions in regard to what the board’s goals were even though Ten Sleep School Board chair Tess Greet explained at the beginning of the meeting that the board would not and could not legally answer questions regarding personnel issues. “You say that you can’t answer questions, I’m going to ask them anyway and if you can’t answer us then you better answer yourselves because this matter is not going to be over. You’re going to have this every month until we get the answers we want and part of that answer is, are you listening to us? And so far that answer is no you are not. I’m going to give you guys a chance to set it straight. First of all do we have a mission statement? (which is posted on the wall of the cafeteria) Are we accomplishing that mission? Does anybody feel that we are? I don’t. Do we have a set of goals? Did this school board sit down at the beginning of this school year and write out some written goals? You did? Are we meeting them? Were your goals 100 percent graduation? Zero percent turnover? Maybe the top 5 percent of the schools in the state? Some sort of teacher development? Those should be your goals. If your goals were chaos and distrust then absolutely, you are meeting them. If you goals are complete demoralization of your staff and students and this community, then you are meeting them. I don’t think that’s your goals. I think you people are all better than that every one.”

Cooper added, “We have expectations as patrons here, as the stakeholders in this school, of the school board. We expect you to listen to us, that’s why we elected you. We expect you to set goals, we expect you to direct your administrator, not the administrator direct you. I’m sure you (Greet) run your home with an iron fist, step up and run this school board, draw this school board back together, get your administrator under control and then get this thing going in the right direction. When your administrator isn’t following your directions then you guys need to pull him in and redirect him. If he is following your directions, it’s not where we want to go, so you guys really need to think that through.”

Community member Dani Rice thanked the board for their time and service to the school and the students in a written statement she read to the board. In her statement she stated that she is saddened to see the board be questioned lately on every single decision they make. That the board receives information not given to the public and that the board makes the best decisions they can with the information they are given for the best interest of the school and students. She concluded her statement by expressing her sadness about the one thing that should pull the community together, the school, tearing it apart.