great teacher gets axed

Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 15:59:45 -0400
To: missseipp@aol.com “Reason Magazine Online”
Cc: JWHITEHURST
From: charlies@triad.rr.com
Subject: great teacher gets axed

Howdy,

I don't want to be terribly biased (this is her dad talking), but I don't think this was right - especially for her students who volunteered to march on the the NC Capitol for her.

I would like to relay what just happened in North Carolina to my daughter, Jane (Jenny) Whitehurst, who has a masters - with honors – in computer science education from Cardinal Stritch, Milwaukee.

The reason she got her degree from Stritch was that NC, her home state, did not, and still does not, certify that degree nor can they certify teachers from other states who have an out-of-state certification to teach the subject.

Jenny wanted to return to NC to be near her family and teach computer science. She taught three years in the Oak Creek, WI public system and designed the computer science curriculum for her school.

She did finally land a job in Raleigh where her husband is getting his PhD in biochemistry. She had to be certified in something to be employed in NC, so the NC System granted her a mathematics license after she passed a math exam, and she was allowed to teach her love, computer science. By the way, Jenny is a certified grader for the national AP computer science exams.

After teaching for three years, Jenny got another offer at a more technology centered high school in the same county and began to teach there, but computer science in the new school (within the same school district) was not in the math department but the business ed department. She taught in the new school for another year under a provisional license. To continue to teach the exact same course, she was now required to be certified in business (two more courses and another exam). She agreed to do this, but her schedule and two kids made it quite impossible to comply.

Jenny hoped, in the mean time, that reason would prevail and she would get a waiver to continue teaching.

Such was not the case, the school had to hire someone certified in business to teach her courses and let her go - even though the school acknowledged that Jenny was highly qualified and even had her holding seminars for the other teachers in the business department in the best methods of teaching computer science.

She was offered a job teaching math, but was told that another teacher would lose her job if she took it.

She resigned.

We are hoping for a position somewhere in the Raleigh area so she can help support her kids and hubby while he finishes up.
Resume's available