Iowa Regents terminate two School for the Deaf teachers

The Board of Regents on Thursday unanimously agreed to terminate two longtime teachers with the Iowa School for the Deaf after conducting private hearings last week.

Details of those hearings were not made public, and board spokesman Josh Lehman said Iowa Code prevents regents from discussing the personnel matters. But eight of the nine regents - minus Milt Dakovich, who was not present - met in closed session again Thursday before publicly voting to terminate Tricia Tighe and Tina Murdoch.

Tighe, according to Lehman, started working for the School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs in August 2000. Murdoch first started with the regents' special school in August 1990. They both signed new contracts for the 2015-2016 school year in May, with Tighe to earn a salary of $66,148 and Murdoch to make $60,575 on the year, according to documents provided to The Gazette.

The contracts show both women as full-time, with Tighe holding the top sign-language certification and Murdoch holding the lowest. Both teachers and their work with students had been featured over the years in the school's newsletter. In August, Murdoch was recognized for 25 years of service, according to a school newsletter.

Although neither could be reached for comment Thursday, both women in January told WOWT, the NBC news affiliate in Omaha, they had been suspended and received letters recommending termination.

The letters, according to the WOWT report, listed dozens of reasons administrators felt the teachers were falling short in the classroom - including failure to use methods to monitor student learning, failure to demonstrate competence in content, and failure to enhance academic performance.

The women told the TV station they were shocked, insisted they never failed their students, and questioned the motive and timing of the action.

'Both of us put our heart and soul into that school,” Murdoch told WOWT. 'We both were there on Sunday nights.”

According to the news report, Tighe taught four special education students, and Murdoch had a class of deaf fifth-graders.

'After 25 years they're saying I'm not meeting teaching standards that I was meeting before,” Murdoch said in the interview. 'It does not make any sense.”