Hey ya'all. Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina. My name is Doug Ward, and I have trouble following orders! (It's a special gift!!) I refused to give an invalid end of grade test (NCEXTEND1) to my students with severe disabilities and received a suspension with pay for the remainder of the year (whoo-hoo!!! a month's paid vacation!!!), and my contract was not renewed-I was FIRED!
The hardest part of this ordeal was being so serious in such an absurd situation. The merry prankster in me was dying to do some absurd political theater; but the serious, logical, straightforward approach worked best in allowing the system and the administrators to show their lack of logic and compassion!
Below are some links to the latest news and my you tube video. The first news link has my entire refusal letter printed at the bottom of the article.
http://www.thesylvaherald.com/html/letters_to_editor.html (good until 6-12 and then changes to link below)
2 comments:
Big thanks to Doug Ward. I am definitely going to pass those links and his message on to others.
Doug, you are a hero.
This e-mail was sent to Doug Ward by Carole Edelsky, who has given me permission to post her communication to Doug. Thanks, Carole Edelsky.
Here's the communication....as was written.
doug, you're terrific--even though your district administrators don't think so. what courage! and what pizazz--in the tradition of the yippies. I'm thinking of the great photo on the blog and assuming it's you. spunk, principle, and humor. what could be better? well, maybe some really good press coverage so the public could start to realize what worse-than-nonsense is being imposed on kids and teachers.
carole edelsky
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