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Teachers re-elect leader

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BY ROB SHAW

The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 23, 2012

TAMPA - Jean Clements will serve another term as president of the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association.

The incumbent union leader received 54 percent of the vote in balloting that concluded at noon Wednesday.

Joe Thomas, a social studies teacher at Newsome High, was second with 29 percent of the vote. Leo Haggerty, a social studies teacher at Wharton High, finished third with 17 percent of the vote.

The district's new teacher evaluation system, funded in part by a historic grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation and touted nationwide as a way to make educators accountable, was the focal point of the election.

The system adds a peer evaluator and a greater emphasis on student test scores to the matrix used in evaluating Hillsborough teachers.

Thomas, who got in trouble with the district last year for refusing to accept his assigned evaluator, called the union election a referendum on the Empowering Effective Teachers system.

While Clements got the majority of the votes, the returns showed that 46 percent were not happy with the changes to the evaluation system, Haggerty said.

"We need to make some changes," he said. "The membership has spoken in that regard."

Fewer than 2,000 of the union's more than 9,000 members, about 22 percent, voted in the 10-day online election.

"It's flat-out shameful," Haggerty said of the light turnout. "As a union, we should be embarrassed by this."

Haggerty said he wonders if the low turnout means teachers aren't as unhappy with the system as they have been portrayed to be.

Clements, who taught for 23 years and has been president of the union for nine years, acknowledged during the campaign that the system does need tweaking.

"The work we have done has enabled Hillsborough teachers to have greater input and flexibility than other districts, as well as more time, support and training," she said in a news release issued by the union.

"We don't claim to have all the answers, but we are committed to constant review and continuous improvement."

rshaw@tampatrib.com (813) 259-7999

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