Larry Neace Update, VI; A Mother's Letter

The saga of Gwinnett County, Ga., high school physics teacher Larry Neace continues to gain attention. Neace was fired after 23 years at Dacula High School for marking down the grade of a football player; my initial post covered the story and provides links to newspaper articles.

But the most informative, and impassioned, writing I've come across thus far is from reader Karen Armsby, a mother of two former Dacula High students with personal knowledge of the situation. Her letter, which I've reproduced below and edited to remove some personal information, is, first and foremost, filled with high praise for Larry Neace. But it is also a damning look at the process by which he was fired, and at the way Dacula High is run.

The picture that emerges is of a school where talented teachers feel unwelcome; many have voted with their feet and simply fled. It's a school in which academics are lower on the totem pole than process, where student spirit is crushed, and where the principal fails to adhere to professional standards of conduct. Ms. Armsby believes, in brief, that principal Donald Nutt allowed this conflict to escalate, and handled it poorly, in order to rid himself of this meddlesome teacher. In her conclusion, Ms. Armsby proposes a compromise to reinstate Larry Neace.

One further comment on Ms. Armsby's letter: note her family's extraordinary success in educating girls (who've grown into successful women) in the sciences and engineering. Given the uproar surrounding Harvard president Larry Summers's comments about women, the sciences, and innate differences in the sexes -- an uproar that ended with a $50 million capitulation by the Harvard administration -- it's noteworthy that Larry Neace, and of course Ms. Armsby, are in the forefront of creating opportunities for women in science and engineering. And her own children's academic success proves that she knows what she's talking about. This is an academically accomplished family, and their strong support for Larry Neace is an example of the kind of families who support him fully.

Here's the letter:

Dear Mr. [Superintendent J. Alvin] Wilbanks and GCPS Board Members,

I am writing to each of you in support of Dacula High School teacher Larry “Doc” Neace, a fine educator with the highest academic and ethical standards. I first had the pleasure of meeting Doc Neace about ten years ago on a Saturday field trip to a Georgia Tech program to inform middle and high school girls about engineering education and career opportunities. At that time I did not have a high opinion about science education in Gwinnett County, where in elementary and middle school the only science experiment seemed to be growing bean plants year after year. After our conversation that Saturday, I felt that Doc Neace was a shining light of hope in Dacula for science education, and that my kids could learn some good science at Dacula High School.

And my hopes were fulfilled. My oldest daughter graduated with high honors from Georgia Tech last year in architecture and is now a graduate student at Rice University in Houston. The physics she had with Doc Neace at Dacula HS helped to prepare her for the rigors of Tech physics and her present studies at Rice. My second daughter completed her sophomore year at Georgia Tech, and is doing well in physics, which is fundamental to her major of mechanical engineering. She had Steve Flynt for chemistry and physics, and my son Gardner had Jonathan Crymes for physics. I have nothing but praise for the Dacula HS science department, which over the years has developed high standards, in great measure I believe, under the experienced guidance of Mr. Larry Neace.

I was stunned when I heard that Mr. Neace was being fired. After talking to parents and former teachers of Dacula HS I knew I had to attend the hearing before the Board, which I did, and stayed to the very bitter end, stunned again.

Mr. Neace has had his class policy of “not wasting time” in place for ten years, and testified that he studied the board policies each year to make sure that his syllabus policies were in compliance. He submitted his syllabus each semester for approval by the administration and never received any negative feedback. He sent his syllabus home with his students who reviewed it and signed an attestation that they understood it, and agreed to abide by the policies.

If you look at Mr. Neace’s policy in his syllabus he does not say directly that there will be points awarded for participation, and this fact was accurately pointed out by Mr. Wilbanks’s attorney in the hearing. However, in reply Doc Neace explained that participation “was built into his policy.” Doc sees “wasting time in class” as a failure to participate. Positive points awarded for “participation” in one class syllabus would apparently pass muster with the school system and board as an academic assessment, but the negative statement that “wasting time results in zero points” is viewed by the school system and board as a discipline issue. I think it is reasonable to say that if someone is wasting time in class, then they are not participating. In the past ten years there had not been even one previous challenge to Doc’s participation policy. He thought he followed the rules. But suddenly, with one student complaint, his policy was declared invalid, and his career ended. [emphasis added]

I understand the central issues that Mr. Wilbanks presented to the Board were the charges of insubordination and neglect of duty; that Mr. Neace apparently violated the Board policy which prohibits disciplining a student with grade reductions, and that he refused to change the grade. What I cannot understand is how the firing occurred within four workdays, over a two week span, one week of which was spring break! How could you rush to judgment, and give an ultimatum of resign or be terminated to an accomplished veteran science teacher who had an unblemished 23 year career record, without first doing a full investigation of the facts, without getting Mr. Neace’s statement, without answering, but instead dismissing his concerns about his state issued teaching certificate, and without giving him even an ounce of the respect he has earned? [emphasis added] And let’s focus on the impact on student learning; how could you abruptly deprive his 140 students of their teacher at the end of the year?

Because of the failure to fully investigate this matter you did not discover that Mr. Neace was essentially set up. The root of the problem is Dacula High School’s Principal, Donald Nutt, who first showed his intentions when he removed Mr. Neace as Science Department Chairman soon after Nutt became principal. Mr. Nutt, as Mr. Neace’s superior, should have had full knowledge of Mr. Neace’s syllabus, and should have known whether it complied with county policies. Mr. Nutt should have first gone to Mr. Neace to discuss the parent’s complaint, but instead he sent an AP to set up a meeting. Mr. Nutt obtained no information from his own teacher, but he had both talked on the phone and met with the parent before the meeting. Clearly, Mr. Nutt abandoned all professional behavior when, as he testified, he allowed the parent to begin the meeting, when he allowed the parent to rant and curse at Mr. Neace for 10-15 minutes, and finally when Mr. Nutt confronted and admonished Mr. Neace in front of the parent, and demanded that he change the grade. I can’t believe that Mr. Nutt followed any GCPS professional guidelines, or Board policies in his manipulation and mishandling of this situation. [emphasis added]

I believe that Mr. Nutt used this opportunity to rid himself and Dacula High School of Mr. Neace. Mr. Nutt’s actions have been authoritarian, and he’s had a lock-down policy since he arrived at Dacula. His rules and policies squashed student spirit the very first year when he forbad students to decorate lockers or hang banners for sport or academic achievements, a tradition at Dacula and many Gwinnett high schools. He stopped morning and afternoon club announcements. He turned off the TV’s on 9/11, creating intense anxiety in our students! If you recall, several years ago a complaint was made by a DHS English teacher about a white student portraying a black character in their theater production of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” (no black students auditioned for the part!) The Theater teacher, whose production was approved, had coordinated with the language arts teachers teaching the novel that term. The protesting teacher had not even read the classic, shame on him, and he gave his students extra credit for writing protest letters to the Principal. Rather than correct the errant English teacher, Mr. Nutt decided that the Dacula community would be harmed by viewing the timeless classic and he stopped the show. Fortunately, the show went on at the 14th St. Theater in Atlanta, thanks to their generosity. [emphasis added]

Mr. Nutt’s policies have also created a low morale environment for staff and teachers. According to my kids’ former teachers who transferred to more teacher-friendly schools, you only have to look at the turnover of Dacula HS teachers and see the loss of veteran teachers and influx of newer inexperienced ones, essentially a dumbing down of the faculty. Nutt has a staff and faculty comprised of those he can control, or those that don’t complain. However, Mr. Nutt couldn’t break Mr. Neace, and Doc wasn’t about to leave the school he loved and where he had spent most of his career. I propose that Mr. Nutt seized this parent’s complaint as his opportunity to get rid of Doc Neace, and that the confrontation unfolded and escalated as Mr. Nutt allowed it to develop. [emphasis added]

I am not a teacher, just a mom of three kids who have gone entirely through Dacula schools, K-12, and I volunteered in the schools in many ways over the years. We have lived in Dacula almost 21 years, and I cannot stand by idly and let Doc Neace’s dismissal stand. I am not alone, and there has been a huge public outcry to support Doc. There are over 900 entries on three blogs set up on the AJC’s Get Schooled website, plus many news articles, TV interviews, and blogs across the state and the country, from the “OC” in California, to North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and even up to Toronto, Canada. Once again, Dacula and the Gwinnett County Public Schools look like dunces.

The biggest problem I see with GCPS is that there has been an increasing trend over the years to establish more rules, guidelines, policies, and layers of bureaucracy. The “business” of education is losing its focus on learning. The black and white adherence to rules and no tolerance policies doesn’t reflect what happens in the real world where dialogue, intent, totality of circumstances, and due process are considered. [emphasis added] I think GCPS management has lost the power of dialogue, of listening and discussing. If dialogue and critical thinking are constrained at the top, that attitude flows down through management and affects the teachers and students. Sadly, Dacula’s own Board representative, Carol Boyce, who knows Dacula High School best, who voted against Doc’s termination, was overruled by the influence and dicta of the GCPS management.

Dacula High School is “Focused on Learning.” So, what is learning? It seems to me that to GCPS administrators it is achieving the AKS skills; it’s test performance statistics; and it’s adhering to rules, even in the face of ambiguities. There are many rules we have to follow throughout our lives, and I am not saying rules are not needed. However, I think our teachers and students should not be so constrained by a rule and policy structure that they lose the power of dialogue and the freedom of critical thinking, with the result that they can’t develop the love of learning that goes on long after formal education has finished.

Doc Neace is dedicated to that love of learning, and he has inspired so many students, regardless of what grade they made in his classes. He taught them to think critically, to research, and to interact with him and their classmates; in other words, to have a meaningful dialogue.

I think this situation can be salvaged with both sides gaining a favorable and face-saving outcome. It would take concessions by both sides, adjustment of the wording of Board Policy and a change of Doc’s wording of his policy on his syllabus. And it should be carried out with the guidance of a registered third party neutral, or mediator. In the process the school system should examine the confrontational process used in this case and adjust its policy of how administrators handle GCPS business with the teachers who are handling the education. Everyone lost in this situation. Gwinnett County Schools lost a great teacher and is getting a lot of bad press. Doc Neace’s stellar career has been put in jeopardy, and the most damaged are the Dacula HS physics students, who lost their teacher at a critical time in the semester. If both sides can admit that a series of misunderstandings, miscues, mishandlings and mistakes were made, and then work to a reasonable adjustment, then GCPS can save face, Doc can resume teaching, and the students can salvage their learning. It is not just about who’s the boss or letter of the law, it’s about each side caring for the human outcome of students learning.

Sincerely,
/s/ Karen Armsby
Karen Armsby

Copy via e-mail: Mr. Larry Neace, State School Superintendent Kathy Cox, and members of the State Board of Education

Update: Yesterday Neace was the subject of an excellent editorial in the Toledo Blade, hardly the place one would expect to find editorial space devoted to Georgia education matters.

But the machine that Larry Neace ran into -- unprincipled principals, politicized board members, and a good ole' boy network to rival Tammany Hall -- isn't peculiar to Gwinnett. Unfortunately, it's commonplace these days, especially given the enormous influence of the National Education Association, one of the largest lobbying organizations in Washington. That, coupled with the anti-intellectual, politically correct practices of most colleges of education, produces too few teachers such as Larry Neace, and too many administrators similar to the folks in charge in Gwinnett.

Here's the Blade's editorial, which is worth quoting in full:

Sports vs. academics

Here's more evidence that sports too often trumps academic achievement in our schools: A Georgia school board fired a high school science teacher who refused to raise a football player's grade on an assignment because the young man appeared to be asleep in class.

Common sense suggests that Dacula High School science teacher Larry Neace should be congratulated instead. In an era when too many American students are not keeping pace with their competitors elsewhere in the world, he struck a blow for responsible behavior. If anything, the incident should have proven that athletes who don't follow the rules don't get favors at Dacula High School, near Atlanta.

But the Gwinnett County School Board didn't see it that way, and voted 4-to-1 to fire Mr. Neace, who taught there for 23 years. The district's sane and sensible people, including students, parents, and other teachers, were properly shocked and attended a school board meeting to support Mr. Neace, whose attorneys will appeal the dismissal to the Georgia state board of education.

For years the teacher enforced a policy that wasting class time can result in a failing mark. No administrator had previously complained. The football player turned in his assignment on time, and he would have received good marks for it. But his inattention during class brought him a zero.

Instead of applauding Mr. Neace, the district nailed him for insubordination. The teacher refused to restore the football player's grade as instructed, and was told he could resign or risk being fired because of a board policy not to use grades as a disciplinary tool.

Frankly, it's the district, not the teacher, that needs to re-examine its policy. Georgia's board of education should restore the physics teacher to his job. And then the voters of Gwinnett County need to do some firing of their own in the next election - namely, the school board members who ousted a teacher for daring to demand his students' best effort.

That's about as succinct and spot on as anything I could write, so I'll let it pass without further comment, except to congratulate the editors of the Blade for doing their homework and helping to bring what might have been a small, local story to national attention.