BATESGATE II: THE HEARING

UPDATE In February, the commissioner of the Texas Board of Education will hear an appeal by DR. WILFRED BATES, the teacher whose grading methods were at the heart of last year’s first Carter High School controversy.

After Batesgate erupted, Bates was transferred to Gaston Middle School to teach industrial arts and placed on probation. His first appeal, heard in June by a three-person panel, upheld his transfer, one-year probation, pay freeze, and unsatisfactory rating. The panel found that Bates failed to respond to principal C.C RUSSEAU’S instructions and thus was insubordinate. But the panel rejected DISD’s attempt to prove that Bates was unfit as a math teacher and to prohibit him from teaching math in the future.

Bates and his union, the Classroom Teachers of Dallas, then took their case to the DISD board, where a tie vote allowed the lower-level decision to stand.

The teacher and the CTD now are taking their case to the state level. “We want to get the same justice we tried to get in the first place,” says BOB BAKER, president of the CTD.