by Meagan Barrett ’15

These last few days of school are the last time many students at Sherwood will see some of their favorite teachers. The reason for this is simple: Tenure. If a position in a school’s funding is cut, it would seem only logical that a teacher with less ability to engage students and to foster academic achievement should be the one who is let go.

However, teachers in MCPS receive tenure after only three years, at which point they become exceedingly difficult to fire or even transfer out of a school. This means that when staff cuts have to be made at a school such as Sherwood, newer teachers are more likely to be laid off, in spite of the fact that they may be superior to some of the teachers who get to stay. While teachers’ unions may have created the idea with the good intentions of protecting teachers, it has become a surefire way of keeping ineffective teachers in front of classrooms. In any school system, the teacher that a student has can mean the difference between passing the class and failing. In order to fully meet the objective of  schools, which is to educate students, a better effort must be made to ensure that the best possible teachers are the ones who stay when a job is cut, not the teachers who have been there the longest.