SALT LAKE CITY – A Utah teacher who refused to grade a required standardized test has been officially terminated by the Granite School District for insubordination.

Honors English teacher Ann Florence was placed on paid administrative leave March 27 after she told her students she might soon get fired for refusing to grade the writing portion of the district’s Acuity Test, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.

“She said the exam was a waste of students’ and teachers’ time, did not further any education agenda and that it was unethical to have teachers grade their own students on a standardized test that then would be used to judge the teacher,” the newspaper reports.

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Florence apparently told Wasatch Junior High Principal Christine Judd about three weeks ago that she refuses to grade the test, which led to Judd recommending disciplinary action for insubordination. Florence “had been unreasonably aggressive in demanding an answer” from Assistant Superintendent Mike Fraser about a resolution to the situation, the Tribune reports.

The district’s spring break began the day after she was sent home, and she got her answer from school officials via a certified letter March 31 – she’s officially terminated. Florence wasn’t home last week, and received the letter Monday, according to the newspaper.

Union officials, meanwhile, are attempting to use the timing of the termination to suggest district leaders were trying to be sneaky by firing Florence while students and teachers were off for spring break.

“ … American Federation of Teachers representative Liz Weight worried the district was waiting until spring break … so the firing would get less attention,” the Tribune reports.

The bottom line is, it doesn’t really matter when Florence was fired. She was terminated for refusing to perform her job, and that’s that. The timing of her termination is irrelevant.

Florence may have had a valid point about the apparent conflict of interest in teachers grading student tests that are, in turn, used to grade them, but her approach to the situation was unacceptable. Advocating against something is one thing, but flat-out refusing to perform assigned work is quite another.

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Granite school officials undoubtedly made the right decision to let Florence go, but it likely didn’t have to be that way.

Before leaving for spring break, Florence’s students started a petition and gathered more than 100 signatures in an attempt to save the teacher. Clearly Florence connected with her students.

It’s just a shame she couldn’t connect with school officials to express her frustrations about the district’s standardized tests in a more reasonable manner.