The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1913-02-08
AND BOARDS
SHOULD EACH BE FAIR
Contracts Are Made in Good
Faith, Yet There Are Many
Instances of Unfair Dealing
by One of the Parties There

Instances of Unfair Dealing
by One of the Parties There
to.
To the Editor of The State:
The reckless disregard with
which many teachers break
their contracts with school
boards deserves the severest
condemnation. Teachers apply
for positions which they do not
intend to accept, unless they
can get nothing more attrac-
tive. Others make contracts in
June and July only to throw
them up in August or Septem-
ber for something apparently a
little better. Every year dozens
of school boards receive within
two weeks of the opening of
their schools so-called resigna-
tions from teachers who have
been weeks under contract to
take these schools. These con-
tracts were made in good faith
by the boards, yet these teach
ers, for an insignificant increase
in salary somewhere else, are
ready to violate their contracts
and go elsewhere without ask
ing for an honorable release.
All such conduct is reprehensi-
BILE to the last degree, and all
such teachers should be taught
a lesson.
However, there is another
side to the question. School
boards frequently deal unfairly
if not dishonorably, with their
teachers for a certain number
of months, then cut the term
short several weeks without
any show of justice. Without
any businesslike investigation
of the finances of the district,
the board contracts with the
teacher for longer term than
the money warrants, the teach
ers go to work in good faith,
the school closes before the ex-
piration of the contract time,
and the helpless teacher has to
bear the consequences. 1t is
the business of the board to
know its finances, and it has no
right whatever to make the in
nocent teacher suffer for the
boards stupidity.
The board sometimes discov-
ers that it has made a poor Sc
lection as to its teacher, then
closes the school in order to get
rid of the teacher. Such a
course is cowardly, to say the
least. The board ought to have
enough courage and manhood
to deal with such a question
strictly on its merits, and if it
has not this courage, it ought
to be required to stand to it's
contract. Again, boards some
times close their schools short
of the contract period in order
to put the children to work.
This ought to have been
thought out ahead and agreed
upon between the board and the
teacher. A board has no right
to subject its teacher to it's
whims or its better judgment,
without considering the con-
tract between it and the teach
er.
A man was recently engaged
to teach an eight-month school
at a small salary. With but one
weeks notice, the board closed
the school two months ahead of
the contract time for lack of
funds. This man and his little
family actually suffered before
he could get other work. An
other school board closed it's
one-teacher school one month
ahead of contract time to let the
children go to work. Out of her
small salary the teacher was
aiding her mother at home, and
when the school closed she had
to write to her mother to re-
fund enough money to buy the
teachers ticket home. At least
a half dozen of the state aided
high schools close every year
from two to four weeks short of
the time for which the teachers
are employed. These are but
specimens. Such instances
might be found by the dozen.
Teachers have some moral
rights, and they should have
some legal redress against
wrong. Schools ought to be
run on a business basis, and in
that business there should be
as much respect for contracts
as in anY other nnSiness Some