During what would have been a relatively quiet school board meeting, a group of students and teachers approached WW-P school officials, urging them to reconsider terminating teacher Julie Lora-Ruiz’s position in the district as an English as a Second Language and Spanish teacher.##M:[more]##
During the board’s June 23 meeting, Ruiz’s colleagues and former students recounted Ruiz’s service, which they emphasized went above and beyond, in an effort to convince the board to reinstate her. Ruiz’s contract was not renewed in May due to a discrepancy with certification paperwork for her tenure.
Ruiz, who spoke after her colleagues and students, began teaching in the district seven years ago. She spent the past five years as an ESL teacher. She said she received excellent reviews from her principal, vice principal, and ESL supervisor. She was also assigned to teach bilingual Spanish in the district, she said.
In 2008, she said she completed course work for her master’s degree and saw an open position at Community Middle School for a Spanish teacher, applied, and was assigned. In October, 2008, she said she became ill and, by doctor’s orders, was on sick leave until January, when she returned.
It was shortly after her return that the district told her that the tenure she had received in September, 2007, was incorrect. By then, 40 percent of her work was as a Spanish teacher, and 60 percent was spent as an ESL teacher in the district, but district officials refused to allow her ESL supervisor to write up her evaluation.
Then, this past May, her contract was not renewed by the board, despite the fact that she had diligently filed the credentials she needed in accordance with the district’s request, including her K-5 teaching certification, Ruiz said.
“I’ve gone beyond the call of duty, and I truly don’t regret it at all,” she said. “I believe my track record, and loyalty,” will lead the board to “do the right thing and re-instate me.”
She also presented the board with notes from students, parents, and even district officials, attesting to her hard work, and all of her paperwork. Her students’ willingness to speak on her behalf during the meeting made her cry, she said. “It reminds me why we teachers do what we do.”
She said she was not asking for special privileges, but rather the same opportunity that her colleagues were given.
However, Board President Hemant Marathe said that Ruiz never had tenure in the district because she does not have tenure under state laws. The district cannot grant tenure to a teacher if he or she is not legally qualified from the state, Marathe explained. “Under state law, if you have proper certification, and you are a citizen of the United States, and you are renewed by the district for three years,” then the teacher can be granted tenure.
However, Marathe explained that a tenure extension was granted to Ruiz, but that she needed to submit proof of her certification before the decision on her contract renewal came up. “She didn’t have her certification, even though she was renewed, and she does not have tenure under the state law,” he said. “The superintendent made the decision based on the evaluation by her supervisors.”
Marathe said Ruiz was informed of the decision before the May 15 deadline. He said the board did follow proper district and state policies that apply to every employee. “She wasn’t treated any differently than any other employee,” he said.
Susie Zhao, an ESL teacher at High School South and Community Middle School, who is also a Plainsboro resident, said she was shocked to hear that Ruiz was going to be removed from her position. Zhao said she saw first-hand how Ruiz “protected our Spanish speaking ESL students,” in more ways than just as a teacher.
Zhao recalled one incident in which an ESL student accidentally parked her car in the faculty lot because she was unaware she was not permitted to park there. When she received hefty fines and had to attend a court hearing, Ruiz accompanied her and negotiated with court officials to have the fine removed. “I don’t know why such a dedicated teacher is being removed,” she said. “Our morale is greatly affected.”
Gail Mitchell, another colleague and former West Windsor resident, said she saw how Ruiz was always there for her students and even volunteered in fundraising events at South. She says she hoped the issue could be resolved in a “humanistic” manner and “win-win fashion.’
One woman, who spoke through a translator, said she had come from Guatemala with her three children, who had Ruiz as a teacher. She said Ruiz was the first person here who she found to support them.
A handful of Ruiz’s former students told the board how it is “not easy to lose such a great teacher,” and that they were saddened she was being taken away from them.
Antoinette Calabro, a fellow teacher and West Windsor resident, also spoke on Ruiz’s behalf. “These children are everything to her,” she said, adding that she attended graduate school with Ruiz and watched her teach. “She may have tiny little feet, but it will be hard to fill her shoes.”
Henry Wieck, former WW-P school board member and Plainsboro resident, said he went through board minutes and saw that she was re-appointed in May, 2007, and tenured in September, 2007. Then, he said, judging from the board’s recent “personnel activities,” the fact that Ruiz was not reappointed “really doesn’t pass the smell test.”
“We certainly understand the situation better,” but at this point, “there is no actionable item for the board to take action on,” Marathe said. “If the tenure is not granted by the superintendent, the board does not take any action.”
North Basketball. In other matters during the school board meeting, another resident also approached the board, this time to express her concern with a situation involving High School North’s boys’ basketball coach.
Vanessa Johnson, a Plainsboro resident, said she was concerned about the boys’ basketball program, for which her son, a sophomore, plays. She said that since the coach joined the program during the 2007-’08 school year, four seniors had quit the team, including the team’s captain, and that her son was considering doing so as well, since he has also been unhappy with the program.
She said she was not speaking solely because of her son, who she says is doing well and even has a college recruiter looking at him, but rather because she was concerned about the entire program. The basketball program not only serves as an extracurricular, but “it’s also a vehicle for high school seniors to go to college,” she said.
She said she feels the problem falls with Coach Dale Florio, who is “neither a resident, nor is he an educator.” She said she already spoke with Athletic Director Marty Flynn about the coach and the athletic trainer, after observing a practice in which he allegedly did not allow the athletes to take more than one water break during practice. The trainer and director spoke with the coach, she said, but the situation has not improved. Florio was appointed as coach two seasons ago.
She also mentioned the team’s record since Florio was appointed. In the 2008 season, the team won three games. This year the team won seven games. “For us not to monitor our coaches is borderline criminal,” Johnson said.
Marathe said that the board has asked Superintendent Victoria Kniewel to look into the matter. “I certainly expect an update on that situation in the coming weeks,” Marathe said. “We take it very seriously.”
Florio deferred comment to Flynn, who could not be reached before deadline.
