The board meeting for South Bay Union Elementary School district on May 21 was packed. Protesting teachers filled the seats and lined the aisles of the boardroom carrying signs with a single teacher’s name –Natalie—taped to their black shirts.

Natalie Gaudinez Dotseth has taught in the South Bay Union Elementary for three years, the first year was part-time and the last two years she taught fifth grade. In March the board chose not to re-elect her–that is to fire her.

During public communication, colleagues, union officals, and even a mother and student lined up to reason with the trustees about why Dotseth should not be released. One teacher played the blues harmonica on Dotseth’s behalf, one teacher lead the room in the chant, “The whole district is watching.” The mother of Dotseth’s student praised her teaching skills.

When Dotseth was contacted for comment late Friday, at the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, she was helping out at a student talent show. Dotseth said, “I try to make positive experiences for students. I want education to be fun for them and often that means time beyond the school day.”

California teachers have probationary status for two years at the end of which time a district can choose to dismiss or not re-elect a teacher with no need to show cause. The education code says probationary teachers are not even entitled to a hearing.

Dotseth said the district’s decision to let her go was “retaliatory.” “I’m a really good teacher, I have a great track record, but when I started becoming an advocate for students and colleagues—then things changed. In fact, I had a perfect evaluation last year from the same administrator [who this year gave her an unsatisfactory].”

Dotseth served on the Southwest Teachers Association Political Action Committee and says she was “highly visible” during the 2014 trustee elections. Ironically, she helped elect three trustees, some of who have now agreed to give her walking papers.
Many districts have mentors who assist new teachers. Dotseth said, “I was really surprised I received no support from the district.”

Teachers will often pack a boardroom for contractual or financial issues but it’s unusual for so many teachers to turn out for a single, non-tenured teacher’s dismissal. The president of Southwest Teachers Association, Lorie Garcia, said they’ve showed up to protest the dismissal for the last few months.

“She [Dotseth] was very vocal, she spoke up when she knew she had to. She had strong parent support, and she’s been a very strong student advocate, making sure her students were succeeding. That’s why we’ve filed an Unfair Labor Practice because you have a right to be a union activist, regardless of your status in the district.”

Regarding the May 21 board meeting, Garcia said, “We were all shocked when they [the trustees] cut off a 39-year employee during her retirement speech and when they didn’t let two of our members speak. The district has always honored our right to speak in the past. This is very rare. Our union has worked well with the board since I took office three years ago. If we had a difference of opinion we were able to work it out without taking legal action.”

The same night a less visible protest was also taking place. Mothers with squirming, tired children finally had to go home before it came time for public comment, though they had come to the meeting to petition to keep a resource teacher at Oneonta Elementary School.

In an interview prior to the board meeting Wintilia Gonzalez laid out papers on the table that she believed demonstrated that Oneonta needed the resource teacher that the budget provided for this position. Among the letters to the district and Local Control Funding Formula documents was a petition signed by over a hundred Oneonta parents in support of keeping the resource teacher.

Another document on the table was a March 11 letter from the Parents of students at Oneonta to Superintendent McNamara and SBUSD Board Members. It makes the point that students at Oneonta have been making steady improvements learning English as demonstrated by their California English Language Development Test (CELDT) scores.

Gonzalez said the first three years of education at Oneonta are dual-immersion so students learn English while they are mastering other subjects. But she says many students arrive in 4th, 5th, or 6th grade with very little English and there is no dual immersion net. Gonzalez says the resource teacher pulls the students out individually and works with them in 45 minute sessions to improve their English skills. She attributes the increase in test scores to the extra help the resource teacher brings to the curriculum.

Gonzalez says she and other parents wonder why the board has not responded to their March letter.

Chris Brown board president and trustee Barbara Elliott-Sanders did not respond to email queries about these issues.