At a time when legislative leaders and education officials say the state is in desperate need of more qualified math and science teachers, the Salt Lake City School District is involuntarily transferring a veteran physics teacher from West High School's highly respected International Baccalaureate (IB) program, leaving IB students concerned about their standing in the program.
"I'm a senior," one student in the IB program said. "So far, we haven't been told who will be the replacement, and for a couple of months it will be a substitute. I want to do well on the test, and we've just lost our teacher."
The controversy, which has outraged a number of West High parents and students, came to light earlier this month when district personnel director Patrick Garcia informed physics teacher Dan McGuire he was being transferred to Horizonte School, despite McGuire's written objection to the plan and his concerns that his departure just before the beginning of school would jeopardize his IB and Advanced Placement physics students.
Also, his proposed schedule at Horizonte has him teaching algebra, geometry, personal finance and earth sciences — subjects he has not taught before. According to an email McGuire sent to the parent group, the move could jeopardize Horizonte's $2.2-million federal grant as a Title I school because he is not qualified to teach some of the classes.
District spokesman Jason Olsen said in a statement that McGuire had requested a transfer last June and the district is accommodating his request. McGuire acknowledged in his email to parents that he had made the transfer request, but because it didn't occur until just before the beginning of the school year, he said he didn't want to go through with it for fear his IB and AP students would suffer academically.
It was known that McGuire and West High's administration had some disagreements, but members of the parent group said he was a gifted physics teacher, and his IB students consistently earned among the highest test scores of any school in the IB program.
Olsen said federal privacy laws prohibit public comment on specific personnel issues, but because McGuire has been so open about the issue with parent and student groups, the district was compelled to respond.
"We have complete confidence in the West High School administration to staff all classes appropriately," he said. "The district has identified a number of well-qualified candidates who are currently being interviewed for the position at West, and a new physics teacher will be announced very soon."
He also discounted McGuire's concern that the move will jeopardize Horizonte's federal school improvement grant. "All teachers at Horizonte have the ability to request a transfer if they do not want to participate in this proactive project."
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Hey taxpayers • During the anti-federal government rally in Salt Lake City sponsored by Take Back Utah on Saturday, elected officials such as Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw and Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab spoke about the intrusion of the federal government on states and individual rights.
Interestingly, there also were a Kane County sheriff's truck and a Sanpete County sheriff's truck parked near the hundreds of ATVs brought by the avid off-roaders at the rally.
So, were county taxpayers subsidizing this protect-the-taxpayers rally?
Or, maybe they were there to arrest any dissidents — i.e., liberals.
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Hands-on learning • Liane Stillman, Cottonwood Heights city manager, was getting ready to leave for Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, the day a rare earthquake rocked the capital and other cities along the East Coast.
Stillman and other city employees were going to Washington to attend a seminar by the Federal Emergency Management Agency on how to best respond to earthquakes.
