The teacher’s code of ethics and moral responsibility

Before the school opens this June we would usually ask school experts to address both old and new teachers. The teacher’s code of ethics and the importance of preserving one’s integrity are emphasized.

The Code of Ethics for Professional Teachers issued by the Board for Professional Teachers through Resolution No. 435 series of 1997 provides in the PREAMBLE that Teachers are duly licensed professionals who possess dignity and reputation with high moral values as well as technical and professional competence.”

The school legal counsel

There comes a time when some teachers’ integrity is seriously questioned so that school lawyers are summoned to establish whether the child’s mentor is guilty or not.

Any teacher who err undergoes a due process of notifying teachers of their errors. This consists of a maximum of three written notices. The first cites the wrongdoing of the teachers, the day and time this was observed, and how the student‘s right was violated. She is given a chance to respond in writing and a month’s time to correct the error.

The second is given when the error persists with three penalty options: a warning of demotion, shift in the job or termination.

If the misbehavior still persists, the third notice announces the demotion or termination of the teacher.

My administrative staff and I make sure that the rules and regulations and code of conduct of the school are printed in the O.B. Montessori Center employees’ handbook.

The school is guided as well by the Code of Ethics for Professional Teachers. We also have the Parent and Student Handbook

School contracts

Using the Montessori system, all teachers, whether they have recently finished college or already experienced, have to be re-trained before being employed at the O.B. Montessori schools.

Even then, they must first pass a battery of tests to gauge their IQ, teaching aptitude and maturity.

Before being presented to the school president for final interview, the teachers have to sign a letter of intent that they are willing to undergo the Montessori Teacher Formation Course.

This letter states that they must prove their efficiency for two to four weeks before undergoing an intense theoretical and practical training.

It is part of a two-year Scholarship Agreement with the school: one year on-the-job-training on Montessori system of education and one more year of service contract.

To ensure faithful compliance to this agreement, a scholarship bond will be deducted from their salary for one year. This scholarship bond will be given back to them upon fulfillment of this two-year contract.

Teachers must undergo a three-year probationary period, according to the law. This matches the gradual acquisition of Montessori competence as a Novice for three years, a junior teacher on the fourth to sixth year, and a senior teacher on the seventh year, enabling the teacher to rise in the ranks and be compensated according to the merits.

Usually, senior teachers have added responsibilities and higher positions. The starting pay of novice teacher inclusive of allowances is being finalized in time for the opening of the school year.

Definitely, the compensation package is drawn-up to be competitive in the industry. Their children may also be given privilege to enjoy the Montessori education scholarship with certain conditions.

A 10-month Teacher’s Contract is signed yearly. The annual renewal of contract, however, is dependent on their proven competence, efficiency and ethical conduct. After finishing three uninterrupted school years of satisfactory service, a teacher can be considered “permanent” or eligible, to be paid for a total of 13 months.

The professional teacher has a lifetime commitment

The school expects a teacher to be faithful in service. Oftentimes some teachers suddenly resign to seek “greener” pastures without sufficient notice to the school administration.

After a thorough deliberation, all teachers accepted to teach for the coming year shall be served acceptance to teach by letting them sign their commitment to teach for another school year.

On tutoring and examinations

Official teacher-tutors usually get a share of the remedial fee. School supervision is absolutely needed because tutoring is only a remedial course and therefore should not last longer than a few months.

Ethics, however, is violated when tutoring is privately arranged. First, the parents leave their responsibilities to an outsider – the tutor. Since this is privately arranged, it is not monitored by the guidance personnel who can gauge if the child is already capable of studying by himself. Thus, it can happen that some tutors practically do the child’s homework, consequently crippling the student’s initiative for a lifetime.

Our lawyer was consulted when a head teacher, privy to the quarterly exam papers, gave these to the students she was tutoring. She was terminated. On another occasion, a school janitor assisting at the mimeographing office was caught regularly selling copies of the exam papers to a high school student who was failing. He was incarcerated in the local jail.

Humble admission of a teacher

As a young teacher admitted, in Dr. Haim G. Ginott’s book Teacher and Child, “I have come to a frightening conclusion. I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or de-humanized.”