By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.org

DADE CITY, Fla. – Either the Pasco County school board is a very forgiving group, or the local teachers union has a great deal of clout.

Just last year the board fired Laurie Bailey-Cutkomp from her teaching position at Zephyrhills High School after it was learned that she punished some students by making them wear cylinder dog collars around their necks – the same type of collars used as post-surgery tools to prevent canines from licking their stitches.

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That should have been the end of Bailey-Cutkomp’s career, at least in that school district. In our opinion, state education officials should have seriously questioned whether she should maintain her teaching certificate.

But as it turns out, Bailey-Cutkomp has a new teaching assignment this fall at Pasco Middle School, which is part of the same district that terminated her employment a few months ago, according to a news report from WTSP.com

It’s not that the school board has forgotten about her transgression. She is no longer welcome on the campus of Zephyrhills High School. But she is more than welcome to start a new job, in the same school district, with a group of even younger students.

In the education world, they call this the “dance of the lemons.” It usually involves teachers unions and administrators conspiring to help disgraced or unqualified teachers find a job at another school when they can no longer continue in their present position.

But in most cases, the teachers’ flaws are covered up, and other districts hire them without knowing about their deficiencies. In this case, the same district that identified her misdeeds is giving her another chance.

What an insult to the students, parents and taxpayers of the school district. They certainly deserve an explanation for this turn of events. But according to school officials, they are mere “third parties” who cannot be told why an abusive teacher has been rehired.

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The school district released a statement saying, “The district did reach a settlement with the employee in question, and as a result, she will be teaching science at Pasco Middle School next year. Since the agreement has not yet been signed and returned to the district, I am not at liberty to discuss the details of the agreement with a third party.

“I can tell you that Ms. Bailey-Cutkomp is a certified science teacher, and our district has a shortage of certified teachers in this area. We look forward to a productive school year for this employee and the students at Pasco Middle School.”

This smells a lot like the work of the local teachers union. Our guess is that union reps threatened to challenge the firing through some sort of appellate system, which could have cost the school district hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. District officials probably decided it would be cheaper to give her another chance and just hope she leaves the dog collars at home.

This is what our public education system has devolved into. And some argue we don’t need voucher programs that allow students to escape this sort of madness and attend quality private schools, where abusive teachers who are rightfully fired tend to remain fired.