Normally, I’d post this in the Pit, but I’m just too tired and discouraged for creative.
This past week, I made the decision to resign my teaching job with a large public school district. Not an easy call to make, as I signed a contract and gave my word that I would work there for the entire school year. But the crap I have had to watch and put up with finally tilted the scales in favor of quitting, and most of my friends’ and family’s reaction has been along the lines of “took you long enough!”
So, let me explain. Hmmm, no, that’ll take too long. Let me sum up.
I was hired on late, and the principal was all excited about my multiple credentials - Art K12, English 4-8, Science 4-8, Health K12, Gifted and Talented K12. He had openings in both English and Science, and so I’d be really great to bring on board. Which was great. Except for the part where he didn’t tell me what I’d be teaching until the Friday before school started. Kind of hard to plan for the year when you don’t know what subject you’ll be teaching.
I heard several of my fellow teachers say something about how we weren’t allowed to flunk students during the first six weeks. I thought they were using heavy sarcasm. After all, our school district has a well known reputation for idiotic policies. No, they weren’t kidding. A memo had gone out the first week of school regarding the principal’s policy on this - a memo I didn’t receive because I didn’t get a mailbox until halfway through the second week of school. More on this later.
One of my fourth period girls was assaulted just after lunch. She was out on the blacktop when a boy from my first period class grabbed her, groped her, and when she struggled to get away, he told her that he was her master, and she’d better obey his commands. She got away and told me about this when she came to class. I immediately wrote her a pass to the vice principal in charge of discipline and sent her down with instructions to repeat to him exactly what she’d told me. So far, this is all just the unfortunate side of teaching in a poor, urban, predominantly Black school in a district that’s been in the shitter for two decades. Except, while the boy is put into In School Suspension until he can be expelled for that and other offenses, he’s still playing on the football team. Oh, and I got in trouble for sending the girl to the vice principal and not calling Child Protective Services. Not that there was a policy, written or verbal for me to follow on that one.
A couple of weeks later, I was called up on the carpet by my Dean of Instruction and Department Chair because I wasn’t keeping to the scope and sequence of the curriculum. The currilum no one had given me a copy of. The scope and sequence that’s published on the district’s website that no one’s told me about. The one my department chair had dismissed with “I don’t know why I bother writing these, no one ever uses it.” The one I’ve gone to my department chair and asked for guidance and not gotten it. The one that my department chair had never talked to me about or told me that she was worried about how I was covering them.
The week after the first six weeks, I find out that the other teachers weren’t using heavy sarcasm, and that there really is a policy that we’re not allowed to fail the students the first six weeks. It’s a little late, because I’ve already entered my grades. The students all know about this policy. This might explain why so many of them refused to do any work in class. It might also explain why when I averaged the grades my kids earned, fifty percent of them failed, and that was with a generous curve. So, I’m in trouble again, because so many students failing is a sign that I’m a bad teacher.
One of my kids said, “My coach says you’re not allowed to fail me. He’s going to change my grade so I can keep playing football.” Just to see if that’s true, I check two days later. Sure enough, student’s grade has been changed to passing. A week later, I get paperwork to fill out that happens to list what all my students made the first six weeks in my class. Someone had changed all the failing grades to passing. Without my knowledge. Without my permission. An interesting side note to this is that Texas is a “no pass, no play” state. Students who fail any class are not eligible to participate in extracurricular activities. My school won the district football championship, playing at least one student who had been ineligible until his score was changed.
By this time, I’m talking to a union grievance rep, and it’s like trying to nail jello to a tree. The same question asked three times gets four different answers. He won’t give me a realistic time frame for when things can happen if I file a complaint. He won’t give me a straight answer on the consequences of filing the complaint. He tells me I’m protected if I file a complaint against the principal, he tells me I’m on my own. It takes me weeks to realize I’m being run around in circles.
In October, one of the eighth grade girls was raped by a school employee. Turns out the guy had a record in North Carolina of just that thing, but the background check didn’t look at all fifty states. Somehow, between then and Thanksgiving, we go from nine hallway monitors/security guards down to two. The student population is scary enough. There is gang-related graffitti in the girls’ restrooms, and apparently, I’m the only teacher who thinks it’s a good idea to report this to the administration. Graffitti gets painted over, but the broken window never gets fixed, and that’s just as well, considering the little problem with asbestos the district’s been having. It takes the principal two days to even mention the rape to faculty or students, though most of us saw it on the news the night the employee was arrested. When he does mention it, it’s to tell the kids that safety is our number one priority, and they really shouldn’t be talking to the strangers (media) across the street. He also tells the faculty in a meeting that runs only an hour over schedule that the district has told him he cannot say, ask, or do anything about the investigation, and is he ever relieved to hear that!
Up to this point, I’d been hanging in there, dealing with students who scrawl “fuck Ms. Pohuka” (I’d take it personally, but if they can’t even be bothered to spell my name right…) on my classroom walls, steal from me and each other, destroy the books I’ve bought for a classroom library, and tell me the reason I won’t let them disrupt my class is because I’m on my period. I’ve been dealing with my department chair never coming through on her promises to help. I’ve dealt with my dean trying to give me negative evaluations when I can’t, by district policy, be evaluated yet. I’ve dealt with the fact that none of my fellow teachers have any interest in socializing with me, that the district is dragging its feet on paying me the correct amount, the guy who runs the offsite training center makes the Soup Nazi look cheerful and laid back, and the fact that no matter what aspect of the job it is, my district has managed to make it more difficult, less effective, and astronomically more expensive. I’ve dealt with it.
Then I was assaulted.
A fight broke out about twenty yards from my room. I went in to help the one teacher involved. He had been jumped by a seventh grade boy, so he put the boy in a restraining hold up against the wall. There was a screaming mob of 30-40 kids all around and one other teacher, so I started doing crowd control - keeping the kids back and trying to get them to go back to class. At one point, I turned to check on the first teacher to see how he was doing, and a student came up behind me and hit me on the back of the head as hard as she could. I saw stars, turned around, and saw the girl heading for the nearest stairs while the rest of the kids around screamed and yelled at the top of their lungs. Another teacher had seen it and gone after the girl. I joined her, but this girl was big enough, I knew the two of us together couldn’t restrain her. Still, I had a witness, and she knew the girl’s full name. After the fight had been dealt with and I saw the school nurse and got an ice pack for my headache, I reported it to the vice principal, who had a district police officer get the girl out of class and write her up for the assault.
Now, assaulting a teacher is an automatic expulsion. No ifs ands or buts. It’s in the handbook, it’s published in the district policies and on the website. It’s really a no-brainer. The girl gets put into In-School-Suspension, at best, until the hearing, and then she’s sent to the judicial alternative education program for at least the rest of the school year.
Except, the girl is back going to classes two weeks later.
So, yeah. That’s enough. I quit. I’ll give them my notice the Monday before Christmas Break. It’ll make finding another teaching job difficult, but at this point I don’t care. It’s not worth it. I’ve had migraines, insomnia, and depression. I’d rather work tech support again than put up with this. At least there, I know they’ll get rid of someone who thinks smacking others is a good idea.
I send you hugs and wishes of good luck finding another position.