Laid off from teaching—forever
Why Chicago Public Schools slapped its "do-not-hire" designation on another highly-rated teacher.
By Ben Joravsky
Under normal circumstances Raquel Garcia would seem like the kind of young, bright, idealistic teacher Chicago Public Schools would welcome into the classroom.
Bilingual in English and Spanish, a graduate of CPS (Lane Tech, class of '01), Garcia wanted to teach in her hometown. In 2009 she took a job teaching kindergarten at Chase elementary school in Logan Square, where she won accolades and good ratings from her supervisors.
Yet the honchos at the CPS central office spent the better part of the last few months trying to ban Garcia from teaching in CPS for life.
Welcome to the ongoing saga of the district's dastardly do-not-hire designation.
Do-not-hire is a bureaucratic label that former schools CEO Ron Huberman invented to keep "bad"