Ousted CEO vows to re-open failed Entrepreneur High

Hans Plotseneder

It's only been a few days since Entrepreneur High closed its doors, but its former CEO is already promising to restart the school without the board that fired him in Christmas Eve.

You'll recall that this school's board chairman told the state that it only had $14 in the bank last week. The charter school advisory board then took the first steps toward revoking its charter. With that hanging over the school's head, chairman Robert Hillman shut down operations Friday.

In an email sent to the media in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, Hans Peter Plotseneder -- also known as Dr. Plots -- insists that he is the only person who has the right to operate the school and lays out a plan to do so.

Plotseneder was fired Christmas Eve after a series of emergency board meetings in late December. Hillman wouldn't go into detail about what led up to the firing, but other school staff members said Plotseneder didn't do enough to take care of the school's students, leading them to withdraw from the school en masse.

Plotseneder's plan hinges on cutting Entrepreneur High's staff in half and relying on public money slated to arrive in February. He claims that he would receive $124,000 from the state and as much as $90,000 from the county.

Plotseneder then plans to receive $90,000 in grants, secure a bridge loan of $75,000, and sublease part of the building, an old Food Lion off Central Avenue. Ultimately, he wants to bring in a charter management organization to take over.

All that would certainly be difficult given that the remaining handful of students have transferred out of the school and that it faces forced closure in a matter of weeks.

The state Department of Public Instruction wasn't immediately able to say whether Entrepreneur High was still eligible to receive money from the state.

Master's degree pay: Nasty surprise ahead?

We know the N.C. legislature has eliminated extra pay for teachers who earn advanced degrees after 2014.  But like so many things coming out of this summer's rapid-fire session,  details are still being sorted out.

It's not even clear what the deadline is for completing a master's degree to qualify for the 10 percent pay hike that's now part of state's teacher pay scale.  The state budget bill says teachers are grandfathered into the old pay scale if they earned the salary supplement  "prior to the 2014-15 school year."  Currently,  the deadline for earning master's pay in 2013-14 is April 1,  2014.

But Tom Tomberlin,  a human-resources official with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction,  said today that his department will ask the state Board of Education to consider pushing that back "to accommodate those teachers finishing their masters in the spring of 2014."

The bigger question,  Tomberlin says,  is what happens after 2014,  when everyone converts to one pay scale.  Teachers who are grandfathered into the current master's scale have been assured their pay won't be cut,  he said,  but it's possible they'd be frozen in coming years until their pay comes in line with the new scale. For instance,  a teacher with 10 years' experience and a master's degree made $40,820 on the 2012-13 state scale  (many local districts supplement state pay),  compared with $37,110 for a teacher with only a bachelor's.  The bachelor's scale doesn't hit that level until Year 17.

 "We don't know the answer to that,"  Tomberlin said.  "It's a point we've got to get clarity on from the legislators."

Meanwhile,  teachers in grad school and the universities that serve them are scrambling to figure out how to meet the new deadline  (whatever it turns out to be).  One teacher who had been enrolled in UNC Charlotte's graduate program forwarded an email sent Friday by Dean Ellen McIntyre.  The College of Education is  "strategizing to find ways to help as many of you as possible complete your programs with integrity by December 2013," the email says, adding that more information will arrive in the coming week.

Teachers are resorting to dark humor to cope with what Annie McCanless,  a veteran teacher at Providence High,  dubs "the summer of misery for education in North Carolina."  Shortly after the budget passed last week,  she sent me her Ten Reasons Why Teachers Don't Need an Advanced Degree in North Carolina.  Among them:  "If teachers get an advanced degree they will leave NC so they can work in a state that rewards the educational achievement,"  "Paying all teachers the same salary simplifies the salary charts"  and  "Teachers don’t need the knowledge and skills learned in an advanced degree. All they needed to know they learned in kindergarten."

There's one bright spot for teachers:  Legislators didn't touch the 12 percent supplement for those who have earned National Board Certification.  "I think  'for now'  is the operative word,"  cautioned Tomberlin.

N.C. tenure change: Questions remain

Next summer one in four N.C. public-school teachers will be asked to sign away their traditional tenure in exchange for a four-year contract that includes a $500-a-year raise.

But state education officials are still trying to figure out how the transition will work.  Among the questions:  How will superintendents identify the top 25 percent in their districts?

"It gets a bit confusing,  even if you're deep into this stuff,"  said N.C. Department of Public Instruction spokeswoman Vanessa Jeter.  She put me in touch with Tom Tomberlin,  a former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools administrator who's now the state's human resources liaison with school districts.

Tomberlin

Here's what Tomberlin knows so far:  Based on evaluations for the coming school year,  superintendents and boards of education will be required to designate their top 25 percent in 2014.  Those teachers will be offered a four-year contract and the $500 annual raise in exchange for giving up career status,  the current job protection.

Can they refuse?  Tomberlin says probably so,  since the legislation says it's a voluntary change.  But there wouldn't be much point,  he said,  since everyone's career status goes away in 2018,  when the four-year contract would end.

To be eligible for the top 25 percent,  a teacher must have been employed by the district for three consecutive years.  A quirk in the language of the budget bill  (the section on teacher contracts starts on page 97)  makes it unclear whether legislators expect value-added ratings based on student test scores to be used for determining the top 25 percent,  Tomberlin said.  The superintendent is responsible for identifying the top teachers,  but the school board can modify that list,  as long as teachers offered a four-year contract and raise have  "shown effectiveness as demonstrated by proficiency on the teacher evaluation instrument."

I wondered what happens in coming years:  Will additional teachers be eligible for the four-year contracts and bonuses based on evaluations in 2015 and beyond?  Tomberlin said that's not clear.  The state Board of Education and DPI will be working on details of this plan,  with guidance from legislators.

Meanwhile,  teachers who don't already have career status will be hired on one-year contracts.  In 2018,  all career status ends.  Teachers will be offered one-,  two- or four-year contracts.  Only those with at least three years'  experience and proficient job ratings will be eligible for more than one year.

Jonathan Sink,  the CMS legislative liaison,  adds that if the district doesn't want to renew a teacher's contract,  the teacher may petition the school board for a hearing "but the local board does not have to hear the matter."

"The decision to fire a teacher during the term of his or her contract must be for one of 15 'just cause'  reasons, which are identical to the 15 just cause bases that public school employees have always known,"  Sink adds.  Read Sink's recap of all education-related legislation here.

Update:  Gov. Pat McCrory's proposal to reward 1,000 top teachers with $10,000 stipends gives a new twist to the performance-pay discussion.  The state has more than 97,000 teachers,  so you're talking roughly 1 percent.  One CMS teacher on Facebook has already dubbed the plan "Hunger Games: NC Teacher Edition."

Can you pass the national exams?

Dang it, I still don't know if I'm as smart as a fifth-grader.

Practice versions of new English and math tests,  designed to provide a consistent measure of whether students are meeting national Common Core standards,  were recently posted by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.  I tried my hand at the fifth-grade math exam -- partly to see how rusty my skills had gotten and partly to see what online testing is all about.

I found the online format a bit random:  Sometimes you typed in numbers,  sometimes you clicked and dragged them from columns.  It took a bit of figuring out,  but didn't seem terribly daunting.  But it was such a letdown when I finished,  clicked submit and didn't get a report on what was right and wrong.  A spokesman for the consortium said the scoring rubrics won't be finished until later this summer.

Of course,  the purpose of posting the tests is to let teachers,  parents and other concerned people get a feel for what's on the horizon.  Plans call for North Carolina students to start taking the national online tests in 2014.  A big part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools budget is geared toward building the capacity for all schools to do online exams.

But now there's a twist:  Even though North Carolina is among 26 states that make up the Smarter Balanced Consortium,  officials say it's unclear whether the state will spend the money to actually buy the exams. "NC has not made a decision about Smarter Balanced yet. We anticipate making a decision (really our state Board of Education will make a decision) in 2014,"  said Vanessa Jeter, spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.

The Common Core movement has proven controversial in many states.  N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory and Lt. Gov. Dan Forest recently added their voices to those raising questions,  saying they want to know more about the Common Core and the state's testing regimen.