Research

Scope and Content Note

The series consists of typewritten or photocopied (ribbon/carbon copy) transcripts and accompanying exhibits produced during tenured teacher disciplinary hearings. Full transcripts often include graphic testimony about teacher performance, classroom situations, and education administration (particularly teacher supervision). Many cases provide evidence of efforts by district administrators to identify and remove teachers they considered incompetent. Transcripts provide information about workplace relations and working conditions in the state's public schools, and on "social" labor relations in an adversarial context (i.e., dialogue, confrontations, and psychological factors).

Transcripts contain opening statements by the hearing panel chairperson and attorneys for the plaintiff and respondent, and a record of testimony including cross examinations of the employee, other teachers, supervisor, administrator, and sometimes school pupils.

Exhibits for the board of education and the employee include a copy of the charges preferred against the tenured employee and documentary exhibits in support of testimony. These may include memoranda and correspondence; teacher observation reports; photocopies of reported court cases; lesson plan books or photocopies; and other documents. In a few cases exhibits include audio and videotapes of the teacher in the classroom, and (rarely) physical objects (e.g., a door lock or a piece of jewelry).