EDMONTON – A teacher with more than three decades of experience is speaking out after he says he was suspended for giving a student a zero.
Lynden Dorval has been a physics teacher at Ross Sheppard High School for 15 years and a teacher in the Edmonton Public School system for 35 years. Last week, he was suspended indefinitely for what he says was insubordination for disobeying an order not to give zeros to students.
“My prinicipal has been giving me directive for almost a year-and-a-half to not give students zeros if they don’t hand in work or show up to write an exam,” Dorval tells Global News. “Instead we have a comment policy where we’re supposed to put in comments indicating what they haven’t done. The problem with that is the marks program doesn’t count that for anything, so if a student had only done half the work then their average mark would be based only on that half the work. The average is calculated by whatever marks are in there.”
Dorval says the policy was brought in about a year-and-a-half ago and he has opposed since it came in.
“Acutally it’s been in place in junior high for over a decade,” says Dorval. “And we've always complained as high school teachers that we had to deal with that when students came into grade 10. They just hadn’t had that accountability all through junior high, they were just pushed through.”
Dorval says he had a hearing with the superintendent two weeks ago.
“I didn’t think it would come to this, but yeah I was aware that certainly I had been threatened many times about some sort of disciplinary action. So I was prepared for it.”
His concern was the timing. His three Physics 30 classes are only weeks away from writing their diploma exams.
“Just the fact we ‘re 3 weeks away from writing our diploma. I don’t think it’s right to take away our teacher,” says student Tyler Chin. “I think that’s fair to give a student a zero if they deserve it.”
School board spokesperson Cheryl Oxford refused to comment specifically about the case, only saying the district does not have a blanket no-zero policy, but rather, each school decides whether to use the practice.
“A student is to be assessed on their overall learning outcomes,” she told reporters. “So as opposed to being assessed on what they don’t know, they’re being assessed on what they do know.”
Dorval disagrees with the no-zero policy saying a zero grade makes students accountable.
“Especially at the high school age, students need to know when they don’t’ do things there’s consequences to not doing things.”
He feels teachers should make the decision on how best to evaluate student work.
“That’s part of my profession is to make judgements about the best way to motivate students and evaluate them. It’s not a position I took lightly.”
“All the decisions that we make are in the best interest of students,” says Oxford, “ If the superintendent did not feel that this decision was not in the best interest of the students he wouldn’t have made it.”
He expects to be fired now that he has gone public with the issue.
“A lot of the staff has said they’re behind me. They’ve said they’re too afraid to speak up about it but they support me.”
Fewer than six teachers have been suspended in the past two years, according to the EPSB.
On Thursday afternoon, the school board issued a statement regarding the incident.
Below, you can see the practices for Ross Sheppard teachers. The no-zero practice is outline on page three under 6.0 Work Not Handed In/Incomplete Work section.
No Zero Policy
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