Speak up, but Fluently

Abstract

In the late 1970s, Phanna Kem Robishaw emigrated to the United States after escaping from the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. She was licensed to teach elementary education, special education, and bilingual education (in Cambodian and English) in Massachusetts. In 1992, she became a 1st-grade teacher in Lowell, Mass. At her elementary school, almost half of the students and four other teachers are Cambodian. Until 2002, her evaluations had been uniformly positive. In October 2002, the new principal at Robishaw's school told the superintendent that she was concerned about the English proficiency of several teachers, including Robishaw. At the superintendent's suggestion, the principal evaluated those teachers based on their instructional abilities in the classroom. The principal's observations of Robishaw's classroom began in October and continued three months. In November 2002, Massachusetts' voters approved Question 2, which required teachers to be fluent and literate in In January 2003, the principal gave Robishaw an unsatisfactory overall performance rating. Although citing her inability to orally communicate effectively, the principal did not explicitly assess Robishaw's English fluency. On Feb. 3, after meeting with the principal about the evaluation, Robishaw experienced symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and took a medical leave of absence. In March 2003, the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education instructed school leaders to verify the English fluency and literacy of all teachers in English language classrooms, beginning with the 2003-04 school year. The commissioners defined fluency as proficiency in English that consists of comprehension and production, and accurate and efficient oral communication using appropriate pronunciation, intonation, grammar, and vocabulary in an interactive professional context. The teacher's principal could assess the teacher's literacy through observations or interviews and could also require the teacher to pass an approved test, such as the American Council of Foreign Language Teachers' Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI). The commissioners also said that possessing a state teaching certificate was evidence of meeting the literacy requirement. As a result of this directive, the Lowell school board adopted a policy requiring fluency all teachers who spoke a first language other than English. Those teachers would be required to take the SPEAK test (which is scored by trained outside raters) and, if they didn't receive a score of 55 points, the OPI test. Because of her PTSD and medications related to it, Robishaw asked to postpone taking the SPEAK test. The Lowell administration declined. In April and May, respectively, Robishaw took and failed both the SPEAK and OPI test while still on medical leave. In June 2003, the superintendent notified Robishaw in writing that she would be terminated by Aug. 14 if she failed to achieve a passing score on the OPI. When Robishaw did not do so, the superintendent sent her a letter of her intent to dismiss Robishaw for cause pursuant to state law. In September, the superintendent held a hearing at Robishaw's request. The superintendent extended Robishaw's medical leave after reviewing medical documents and hearing testimony that the stressful situation had triggered the trauma that Robishaw had experienced in Cambodia and that her PTSD remained so severe as to preclude proper performance not only in her professional position but also on the fluency test. Robishaw remained on medical leave two more school years. In June 2005, she notified the superintendent that she was ready to return to work. The superintendent replied that she intended to dismiss Robishaw effective September 2005 because she had not passed the OPI test. Robishaw requested and received a formal review hearing under state law. After the hearing, citing not only the principal's observation and the test scores but also her own observation of Robishaw's fluency at the hearing, the superintendent terminated Robishaw based on her demonstrated level of English fluency and the best interests of students. …