It’s a wonder anyone wants to be a public school teacher today, but thank goodness for the dedicated souls who do.
We bring this up because the Hamilton County Board of Education recently passed a code of conduct for teachers, which are the same or very nearly the same as those in the Tennessee Teachers’ Code of Ethics.
We aren’t against what’s in it, but it’s one more fine line they have to walk in addition to managing the masked or maskless health of their students, having to prepare at practically a moment’s notice for online learning, completing mountains of bureaucratic paperwork, contending with little or no disciplinary power and, oh, yes, teaching and grading student work.
Before the code was approved recently, board member Marco Perez brought up an important point about a line in the policy stating teachers have to be careful with expressing themselves.
We imagine it was this phrase: “[E]mployees must take great care when exercising their own freedom of expression to be alert how their views may impact a student’s or parent’s perception of the educator so as not to create unnecessary barriers to the education process.”