North Carolina lawmakers violated veteran teachers’ constitutional rights by passing a law that would remove job protections they’ve earned, the state’s court of appeals found last week. But the court rejected efforts to restore newer teachers’ pathway to the protected job status.
Under the 2013 law, legislators sought to move from a system that protected teachers from firing or demotion after they passed four years of probation and earned “career status.”
For more than four decades, veteran teachers were protected from firing or demotion except for a list of reasons that included poor performance, immorality, and insubordination.
