By Chelyen Davis

RICHMOND—A House of Delegates committee has approved legislation to limit the length of teacher contracts.
The bill has changed since Gov. Bob McDonnell first proposed doing away with the “continuing contracts” enjoyed by teachers after they make it through a probationary period. McDonnell wanted to shift to one-year contracts for teachers and apply a more stringent evaluation process.
Changes to the bill by the House Education committee now mean the bill will grandfather in current teachers who are in continuing contracts, and apply only to new teachers. Thanks to an amendment to the bill made Wednesday morning, that also means current teachers with continuing contracts who move to different school divisions can still have a continuing contract.
About 90 percent of the state’s 100,000 teachers have continuing contracts, officials said.
New teachers, however, will have a five-year probationary period — currently it’s three years — and then their contracts will last only three years at a time. Administrators can release teachers from those contracts in the third year without giving a reason.
Supporters of the bill, and the McDonnell administration staff, say it will reward good teachers and ensure a more vigorous evaluation process to weed out bad teachers.
“This is about the future,” said state Secretary of Education Laura Fornash. “This is about moving forward and enhancing the teaching profession.”
Opponents say the bill will make it even less appealing to become a teacher. While state organizations representing school boards and school superintendents support the bill, teachers’ groups do not.
“Passage of this bill will have great impact” on teachers, said Rob Jones, lobbyist for the Virginia Education Association.
He said the continuing contract was put into place because in times past, nepotism, favoritism and arbitrary dismissals were rife in school administrations.
“I fear if we pass this bill we’ll be going back in that direction,” Jones said.
John Szewczyk, of the Virginia Professional Educators, questioned why, if there are as few bad teachers as the bill’s supporters say, the bill is needed at all.
Continuing contracts, he said, protect teachers from reprisals should they enact discipline or something else that could earn them enmity.
“Teaching isn’t a popularity contest and teachers aren’t always going to be popular with all members of the community,” he said.
Frank Cardella, a teacher in Chesterfield County, also said the bill would open up teachers to office politics.
“This bill does not address teacher quality,” he said. “It provides mechanisms to dismiss qualified teachers who do not toe specific agenda lines.”
Delegates questioned why teachers should have more job security than other people.
“Probably 80, 90 percent of Virginians work with no contract at all,” said Del. Mark Cole, R-Spotsylvania, who said he has no contract at his job either.
Cole said that as someone in a managerial position, he doesn’t buy the argument that school administrators would use the bill to fire competent teachers.
“The fear that you’re going to start firing teachers willy-nilly… I think that’s just unfounded,” Cole said. “It’s a pain in the butt to try to fire people and replace them.”
Del. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, said teachers deserve some job security as the state chips away at their pay and benefits.
“We are going to take an already demoralized, already stressed out workforce” and make the job less appealing, she said. “That you can be sent out the door for any reason under the sun is the wrong message to send to our teachers.”
The committee approved the bill on a 13-8 vote. It will now go to the full House for a vote.