We Are All Craig Charvat: Defend the Free Speech Rights of a Great Long Island Teacher!

 

Craig Charvat, the Social Studies Teacher from Center Moriches High School who made headlines all over New York State for denouncing the Common Core Standards, and refusing to accept evaluations based on Common Core tests, has been removed from his classroom.

 

The grounds for doing this were his refusal to participate in Professional Development sessions related to Common Core, which he felt were a waste of time, and for allegedly inciting students to rebellion, charges based on a recording of one of his class sessions in which he was leading a discussion about the American prison system!

 

The latter charge is the one most disturbing to me. Can you imagine Administrators enlisting student to surreptitiously tape their teachers during a class room discussion? That violates every rule of Administrative ethics I have ever heard of and is a deadly threat to the freedom of expression of every teacher.

 

I am calling on every teacher I know, from nursery school right up through to the University to write the people responsible for personnel decisions in the Center Moriches School District to demand that Craig Charvat be restored to his classroom and the secret taping of teachers be repudiated as a violation of academic freedom and good administrative practice.

 

Please address your comments to the following individuals:

 

.Center Moriches School District: Superintendent Russell Stewart: rstewart@cmschools.orgDeputy Superintendent Lynda Adams: ladams@cmschools.orgHigh School Principal Edward Casswell : ecasswell@cmschools.org Board President Wendy Turkington : wturkington@cmschools.org (she is a librarian in East Islip School District)Board of Ed Trustees Kristen Turnow-Heinz : Kturnow@cmschools.org. (She is a former teacher and she works at Eastern Suffolk BOCES)Dan Finnegan : dfinnegan@cmschools.org. (He's a retired industrial arts teacher) Tom Hogan : thogan@cmschools.org Heather Magill Hmagill@cmschools

 

Craig Charvat must be returned to the job he loves and the job he does so well!

 

 

Note One of my best students at Fordham had Mr Charvat as a teacher and said he was an amazing teacher who went above and beyond the call of duty to help his students both when they were in his class and after they graduated