
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 6, 1993                   TAG: 9310060255
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B5????????????????   EDITION: NEW RIVER 
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Short

ETHICS CODE TO BE REWRITTEN

After hearing concerns from a teachers' association that a proposed ethics policy for teachers and other employees infringed on First Amendment rights and equated professionalism with loyalty to management, the Montgomery County school administration has agreed to try a rewrite.

School Board members, too, said the draft ethics statement - presented during the summer - needed more work.

Board member Donald Lacy suggested showing the draft to all division employees, not just teachers. Christiansburg member David Moore suggested streamlining the four-page document into a short and more general statement on ethics.

Montgomery County Education Association President B.J. Mullins, a teacher at Harding Elementary School, said her group felt two sections - one of which said employees "shall refrain from . . . negative idle gossip regarding the function of the division" - went too far beyond the National Education Association's recommended ethics policy.

The draft, she said, inappropriately linked adherence to the ethics of a profession with loyalty to an employer.

Superintendent Herman Bartlett said the intent was to prepare the school system to move toward a more site-based management scheme, where teachers would have more of a role in decision making and thus more responsibility. The ethics policy, he said, would more clearly define how employees and the employer should interact.

by CNB