The Manhattan Beach Unified School District School Board upheld its decision to fire Mira Costa High School French teacher Timothy Hirsh, 30, at a meeting last week.
Around 150 people, including two security guards, crowded the room, forcing some to sit on the floor as students, parents and teachers implored — and threatened — the board to reconsider its decision.
Mira Costa Principal Ben Dale stood in the back of the room near the doors as some students flung barbed comments and glares his way as they spoke at the podium.
Hirsh sat in the audience with his wife, his youthful face almost indistinguishable from his students’. Neither Dale nor Hirsh spoke during the meeting.
Hirsh, who began teaching at Mira Costa mid-school year in January 2013, was on the standard two-year probationary period given to new teachers when the school board voted not to renew his contract at the March 4 meeting. Typically, the school’s administration makes a recommendation whether to “reelect” a teacher, and then the board makes the final decision. In this case, Hirsh and one other teacher were not re elected, according to Superintendent Michael Matthews, who advises the board but doesn’t vote.
It’s not clear exactly why Hirsh was fired. Matthews said he couldn’t comment on individual personnel decisions. Dale also said he couldn’t say why.
“We generally don’t share the reasons a teacher is not reelected,” said Dale. “That’s standard practice in all schools.”
Dale said no formal complaints had been filed against Hirsh. However, he said that since the March 4 board meeting, some parents and students had come forward with informal complaints.
“If you’re asking if we’ve had negative feedback about him, yes,” said Dale.
He said they hadn’t made any of it public because the board had already made its decision and it wasn’t necessary.
When asked what the content of the feedback was, Dale said he didn’t want to say specifically, but generally, it was about “things going on in the classroom with regards to teaching level,” such as the level of difficulty and instruction.
When told of Dale’s comments, Hirsh was surprised and said there had never been any indication that was an issue.
“It’s never been presented to me in any way, shape or form since I started teaching at Mira Costa,” he said. He pointed to positive reviews of his work by the principal and said that the size of the school’s AP French program had tripled since he started. He acknowledged that his grades skewed toward A’s.
“I’d be the first to say that the grades I give are higher than normal,” he said, “But it’s never been a problem in my eyes. I get kids to work hard for me — I make them want to work hard. When they work hard, they get good grades.”
He also thought the timing of Dale’s comments were “strange” since the complaints were “never mentioned in previous reviews.”
“I haven’t changed my philosophy since I started,” Hirsh said. “I’d be more than willing to change if someone had talked to me about it.”
He said he had received “copious amounts of positive feedback” from other teachers, parents, assistant principals, the superintendent and even Dale.
“I didn’t even know I had received negative feedback,” he said.
At the school board’s March 18 meeting, the other half of the French department, teacher Lauri Gonalons, urged the board to change its decision. She recalled how the department had floundered before Hirsh arrived and how the number of sections of French had gone from nine to 12.
“French teachers don’t grow on trees,” she said. “Mr. Hirsh is one in a million. As his colleague, I ask you to reconsider terminating his employment. Make our family whole again.”
The audience burst into applause.
Multiple students testified to the impact that Hirsh has had on them.
“Never before have I thought a foreign language could be so easily learned,” said Alyssa Castronuovo, a freshman in one of his classes.
Shawn Chen, an English teacher and president of the Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers Association, said that the school had been having problems with getting substitutes lately, and she thought using substitute lesson plans to judge teachers was an “element outside of a teacher’s control.”
A former student who had just spent his first semester of college studying abroad in France suggested that Hirsh had been fired for speaking out against the district, which some other parents and students have also suggested.
“This has nothing to do with Mr. Hirsh’s ability to teach French and has everything to do with an agenda against the teachers union,” said Brian Martin. “It has everything to do with the future jobs of Mr. Matthews and Mr. Dale.”
His statement drew cheers and applause.
After listening to all of the comments, the board went into closed session. Attendees hung around the lobby with an air of anticipation. When the board returned, Board President Bill Fournell announced that they had not taken any action.
“What does that mean?” cried out multiple voices.
“We did not change the decision,” said Fournell.
“You’re going to fire one of the best teachers at Mira Costa?” someone shouted.
“I’m sorry but we need to move on with the board meeting,” said Fournell.
“We’ll fire you!” said a male voice.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves!” shouted another.
Over the heckling, Fournell announced that they would begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. The board members stood, trying to recite the pledge as people continued yelling at them. As they persisted, audience members stormed out one by one, until few people were left sitting.
Evaluations
New teachers under the probationary period are regularly reviewed. The final evaluation form is part of the criteria the school board takes into consideration when deciding to reelect a teacher.
Hirsh made his personnel records available to Easy Reader. Until December of last year, Hirsh’s evaluations were positive, with relatively minor suggestions for improvement.
“Timothy is working diligently to improve his craft,” wrote Dale in a review from October 2013. “He listens to feedback and collaborates well with colleagues to improve his instructional program. He has done everything asked of him in our new teacher program.”
However, Hirsh received a warning letter from the principal on Dec. 1 of last year over the lesson plans he submitted for a substitute for his two-day absence around the time of the school’s closure in response to threats made on the social media app Yik Yak. The school was placed on a lockdown on the Monday before Thanksgiving when a student showed a teacher the message that said, “if you go to Costa, you should watch out very closely at school today.”
The school was closed for two days while the police investigated. Hirsh sent an email telling Dale that he wouldn’t be attending and thought the school shouldn’t open. Since watching his father die from a heart attack at the age of 17, Hirsh has had an acute stress disorder, which was triggered by the threats, he said. He submitted a lesson plan for the substitute, who gave a positive report. His plan asked students to practice using a future verb tense by discussing their plans for Thanksgiving break in pairs for 30 minutes and then said they could have free time.
After observing Hirsh’s class on Friday, Dale found the plan to be insufficient.
“When I entered your classroom during the last 20 minutes of fifth period, your students were not engaged in practicing their French skills,” he wrote in his warning letter. “In fact, three students were sleeping, two pairs of girls were doing each other’s hair, other students were in small groups talking about non-school related issues, and nine were reading or studying.”
“When you fail to provide lesson plans that encompass the entire class period, the instructional program and your students’ learning is negatively impacted. . .Lesson plans for more than one consecutive day should be differentiated in content and either provide your students with opportunities to practice or extend prior learning. Any further violations of your job responsibilities with regard to providing appropriate lesson plans for any future absence will result in a formal letter of reprimand.”
In a letter written in response to Dale’s warning, Hirsh acknowledged that the plan was insufficient but said he gave it his best effort under the circumstances and purposely included the free time for the students’ benefit.
“In light of my intense emotional state and the fact that some of my students have disclosed being exposed to significant trauma, I thought it was best for any substitute plan to take a light approach,” wrote Hirsh. “The substitute plan I wrote was the best that I could do given the extremity of my emotions. Believe it or not, it actually took an extremely long time.”
He suggested that Dale’s warning was potentially discriminatory.
“I have a diagnosed mental condition, which made it nearly impossible for me to write my normal lesson plans, in the wake of terrorist threats to our school,” he wrote. “It was a blip on the screen and I deserve support and compassion, not a letter in my personnel file.”
In Hirsh’s final evaluation form, which was dated Feb. 26, Vice Principal Ian Drummond noted that Hirsh met or exceeded three of the district’s standards: “Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students,” “Teachers are responsible for establishing and managing student learning in an effective learning environment,” and “Teachers are committed to continuous improvement and professional development.”
However, Drummond noted that Hirsh didn’t meet the standard of “Teachers exhibit a high degree of professionalism.”
“Administration has concerns about Mr. Hirsh’s intemperate nature,” wrote Drummond. He cited an eighth grade orientation presentation given by Hirsh, saying that he “rambled in an unfocused and defensive manner about why students should learn French, then quickly read through the three other languages offered at Mira Costa in a manner that appeared to be unrehearsed and indifferent.”
In an interview, Hirsh said that the criticism “came from nowhere.”
“The only negative feedback from anyone about the orientation was in the final evaluation,” he said. “I received several comments from students saying their parents liked it.” At the March 18 board meeting, one parent said she had been impressed by Hirsh’s presentation. Hirsh said that his role in the orientation was voluntary and unpaid.
Drummond’s evaluation also referred to the warning Hirsh was given over his substitute lesson plans, reiterating Dale’s claim that “students lost valuable instructional time.”
The evaluation said that when Dale and Drummond met with Hirsh to give him the warning, Hirsh “exhibited a lack of professionalism and maturity in his demeanor throughout the meeting.”
“He made no effort to acknowledge or address the issue during the meeting in a way that showed regret, or would indicate that he is capable of responding appropriately to guidance and direction from school administration,” Drummond concluded.
Hirsh responded to the final evaluation in a letter, saying that he was advised by his union representative not to speak at the meeting at which he was given the warning. When asked by Easy Reader about the episode, Hirsh said, “I don’t know what the heck they’re talking about.”
“It was a discussion between the reps and the administration,” he said. “I don’t recall saying anything. I sat there, I listened. It was finished and I left.”
Dale said that he thought the evaluation’s description of the meeting was accurate.
Hirsh’s final rating was “Does not meet standard.”
Advocate
Hirsh has said that he doesn’t know why he was fired.
“I’m not even really that sure,” he said when asked why the day after the board upheld its decision not to reelect him. “I’m racking my brain to think of anything I’ve done.”
As some students and parents have done, he noted that he and his wife Jamie York both spoke critically about the school district at past board meetings.
At the April 3, 2014 board meeting, Hirsh said they both spoke about the district’s misappropriation of over a million dollars.
“My wife when she spoke to the board told the superintendent, ‘If I lost $1.3 million, I’d get fired from my job,’” said Hirsh.
Hirsh said he spoke out because he felt like he had been personally affected. About a month after starting at Mira Costa, he was given a pink slip because of budget cuts. Although his position was restored due to the increased demand in French classes, he said that looking for another job had taken away from the time he could have spent preparing for his classes. He also thought the misappropriation might have affected the way that teachers were compensated.
Although he wasn’t completely sure, he thought that he was the only teacher with probationary status who spoke out at the meeting.
Another time, when the board was considering implementing a new health program in exchange for giving the teachers raises, York calculated that the deal would force the teachers to pay more for health insurance in the long run. The teachers union used the algorithm she created in its collective bargaining.
Matthews and Dale both said in interviews that Hirsh’s advocacy was not the reason he was fired.
Hirsh said that the whole experience left him wondering “how such a public outcry from so many students and parents can go completely ignored.”
A similar set of circumstances unfolded a decade ago when a popular teacher named John Burke was fired at Parras Middle School in the Redondo Beach Unified School District. Students and parents protested, both at rallies outside the school and at board meetings. Burke made his personnel file public, similarly revealing almost uniformly glowing evaluations from his administrators. When the school board refused to budge, the parents joined forces with the teachers union to form a group, “Parents and Teachers for a More Responsive School Board.” Ultimately, a board majority was overthrown as the group recruited and campaigned for three new board members. Then-superintendent Bill Nunan was forced to resign at the newly elected board’s first meeting.
Matthews said he hadn’t experienced many other reactions like the one over Hirsh. “I’m very impressed by the students and the community,” he said. “I believe they think he’s an outstanding teacher. It’s something I’ve taken into consideration in making this decision.”
“It’s been a difficult process to hear we’re disappointing students with this decision,” he said. But, “I still believe it’s the right decision.” ER
