Now I chose that title very deliberately. That isn’t the way the story is being presented in the media, or being argued by the teacher and his lawyers. But when one cuts through all the rhetoric, histrionics, and outcry, that is what this story comes down to.

A Gwinnett County teacher was fired early Friday after refusing to raise a student athlete's grade he lowered because the student appeared to be sleeping in class.

The Gwinnett County School Board voted 4-1 early Friday _ after a marathon Thursday night meeting _ to fire Dacula High School science teacher Larry Neace, said school system spokeswoman Sloan Roach.

Neace left the building after the ruling and would not comment.
His lawyers said they planned to appeal the dismissal to the State Board of Education within 30 days.

Now that sounds pretty damning, doesn’t it. It certainly has all the right villains – student athlete, building administrators, school board members – arrayed against one poor defenseless teacher who is trying to stand up for excellence in education. Unfortunately, that isn’t what I see going on here. What I see is a teacher using a poor educational practice in direct contravention of district policy, and then engaging in insubordination when directed to conform his grading and classroom management practices to district policy.

Neace, who has taught at Dacula High for 23 years, was removed from class after he refused to raise the grade he had given a football player on an overnight assignment. Neace said he cut the student's perfect grade in half because he thought the student had fallen asleep at his desk the day the assignment was made.

School officials said they gave Neace a chance to restore the football player's grade. When he refused, they sent him home. He has not been allowed back at school since April 14, when he was told he could resign or face being fired.

Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks recommended to the board that Neace be fired.
"He cannot have a policy that supersedes board policy," Wilbanks said. "He had no right to do that."

Neace said he had a practice of reducing the grades of students who waste time or sleep in class. His course syllabus warns that wasting class time can "earn a zero for a student on assignments or labs."

No administrators had previously complained about the practice, which he adopted more than a decade ago, Neace said.

Let’s look at what happened. You had a kid who may or may not have fallen asleep in class on Wednesday (a pet peeve of mine that earns kids a d-hall with me the following afternoon, I might add) being penalized on a homework assignment that was not required to be completed or turned in until Thursday morning (I’m speculating on the days of the week to make the point). The student completed the assignment within the allotted time, and did it well – but was given a failing grade instead of the grade he earned. That isn’t reasonable, and it violates district policy. The superintendent has the matter exactly correct when he says that teachers do not get to override board policies with which they disagree.

Nease says he has done this for years. What that means is that he has been lucky. No one has complained that he has been dealing with disciplinary matters by lowering grades. Someone who knew what was allowed finally complained, and the administration became aware what the teacher was doing. When they attempted to enforce district policy, the teacher refused to comply with a legitimate and legal directive. That is insubordination. Case closed – fire him.

The fact that we are dealing with a football player is essentially irrelevant to the issue. The Board says that such grade penalties are forbidden. Neace could have given a detention, referred the student to the office, called the parents, or even called the coach (something athletes at my school seek to avoid at all costs). Instead he decided to apply a penalty that is forbidden to he, and he got slapped down when the parents complained about the violation. When it comes right down to it, Larry Neace is the guy who thinks he is above the rules, not the student athlete and his parents.

Let's look at some of the grading policies in my district. By Board policy, the grading scale is set, the percentage weight given to test and non-test assignements is set, and grades cannot be docked for behavior that doesn't involve academic dishonesty. Under Texas law, no one other than me can change a grade I assign without me signing off on it -- unless it can be documented that I have assigned a grade in violation of School District policy or state or federal law, in which case the superintendant or his designee (the building principal) can make the change if I refuse. That law preserves the integrity of my grades, but prevents me from being arbitrary and capricious in my grading.

For those of you who work in private industry, especially if you own a business, look at the situation objectively. What happens to employees who violate management policies and, when ordered to follow them, refuse to do so and claim management is unreasonable? They get fired, and it is rare that such terminations ever become an issue.

Do I have a concern here? Sure I do – I’d love to know why the administration didn’t know that Neace was applying a penalty that was forbidden under Board policy. That needs to be looked at by the Board. But the belated decision to make a teacher comply with the same rules that apply to every other teacher in the district is not a problem in my book.

Others, though, have a variety of views on the case, including Zero Intelligence, The Force Arena, Palm Tree Pundit, Ramblings' Journal, Michelle Malkin and Winfield Myers.