(I've been on dKos for a long time, but I'm not much for the personal diaires, mostly because I lead a pretty uneventful life. But this time, it's different. A little too different.)
Tomorrow I stand trial in the Administrative Law Court of New Jersey, having been accused of unprofessional conduct by the charter school I worked at for six weeks at the tail end of 2009. When I took the job, I was desperate to teach again, having been laid off from a public school job the previous June. (I have also worked in NYC for six months (it was horrible) and at a private Catholic school.) You know that little voice that tells you when you shouldn't do something? Well, I didn't listen and now here I am possibly one day from packing it in (or more accurately, having it packed in for me) as a teacher.
Follow me over the jump for the whole story.
Here are the nuts and bolts of the story as posted to a teacher-related site:
Looking at the end of an all-too-short teaching career.
This week I was informed by mail from the law firm that represents the charter school I worked at for two months that my teaching license is going to be suspended for one year because I left before my 60-day waiting period was up. The hearing is probably going to be in a few weeks.
I started working at the school in early November. In late December, I informed the administration that I was no longer interested in working for them. The school had misrepresented themselves as a college prep school when in fact most of the students that were in the school were 2-3 years behind. It's a non-union school with a hellacious workload for the teachers and most of the teachers were miserable. At the end of the previous school year, 18 out of 25-30 staff members were let go, so the school was basically starting over. Not to mention that it created a culture of fear and intimidation. The students were simply not ready for school. 50% of the seniors had not passed the state-mandated exam for graduation (this is New Jersey). The school uses data-driven instruction, which means that all the students take standardized tests three times a year and the results from these tests are used to drive instruction. If the students do not demonstrate ability with topics you have already taught, you have to go back and teach them again.
The juniors are taking the state exams for the first time in March. 70% of them did not pass the last mock math exam in January. I was teaching an Algebra II honors course with 10 students. 5 of them did not demonstrate proficiency on the exam. Had I stayed, I would have had to abandon the Algebra II curriculum in order to go back over topics they should have learned before they got to me. I have an e-mail saved from the math department chair stating that these juniors did not receive instruction in 5 chapters of Algebra I and two chapters of Geometry and could you make sure that you cover them in addition to the Algebra II curriculum before the state exam?
The previous teacher was fired the Friday before I was interviewed. I was interviewed on a Monday and was offered the job the same day. I started on Wednesday. I knew I shouldn't have taken the job, but I was desperate. I just had a bad feeling about the place.
Anyway, back to the resignation. When I returned from Christmas break, I asked to see a copy of my contract. The business manager came to my classroom with a blank contract and said I needed to sign it. I said I would look at it and get back to him later. He found me next period (by now, he was looking a little anxious) and I said I wouldn't sign (remember, the contract was blank - I still have it). He didn't look too happy and said if I didn't sign, I couldn't work there anymore. I said OK, tell the CEO I'll leave at the end of the day. The CEO held a math dept meeting in his office later that day regarding tutoring because of the bad math scores. He asked everyone in the dept except for me when they could teach (they were asking for M-F 3-6 pm and Sat mornings). He also saw me in the hallway later that day and didn't say anything to me. I left at the end of the day and sent him an e-mail stating I wasn't coming back again because they failed to offer me a contract in a timely manner. The next day he sent me a nasty e-mail and said I didn't care about my students and that I didn't deserve to have a teaching license.
Last week, I received an e-mail from the business manager demanding that I pay them over $1000 because now they are claiming that they overpaid me. They aren't going to take no for an answer.
Then the law firm. I'm about ready to give up on teaching. This is my fourth job in five years and I have had it with all the dishonesty and nastiness. I have also decided that should my license get suspended, I am considering voluntarily surrendering my teaching license, because frankly it just isn't worth the heartache anymore, and besides, no one will ever hire a teacher who's been suspended anyway, so what's the point?
I'm 46 and I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.
Thanks for reading this far.
In a last-ditch effort to make this go away, our side offered to apologize. Their response was "thanks for the apology, but we'd rather have money. $8300 to be exact." $7300 for their legal fees so far (and it will probably top $10K by the time this is done) on a case that they started. By the way, this is a public charter school, so this is being financed by the good people of New Jersey (including me!) Tack on over $1000 in back pay that they claim I owe. They said they overpaid me.
The two sides met at their lawyer's office last month (very fancy high end office with the big screen TV blaring Fox News in the sweet, sweet lobby) to interview each other. I was grilled by their lawyer for 45-60 minutes. My lawyer said I did very well. My lawyer asked them about 10 questions. They said many things that were untrue. The business manager "just happened" to be reviewing contracts that day when he couldn't find mine. He said he never told me I had to leave. He said he never told the CEO that I was leaving.
Here's a good one - school policy on contracts: Hand the employee a blank contract. Employee fills out and signs the contract. Salary field is left blank, to be filled in later by the CEO. Is that insane, or is it just me? The CEO also said he skipped me at the department meeting because I had already turned in my resignation. He said that they didn't want to hold on to any teacher that didn't want to be there.
So why are they going after me? My lawyer told me on the first day, "TGLF, I think they're just trying to fuck you." Nothing has changed his opinion on that count. They are doing this just Because. They. Can.
One more thing - if you work in education, promise me that you will never never never take a job in a charter school. You have no protection of any kind. No one to turn to when things go wrong. You put your teaching license at risk when you step into a non-unionized charter school. When something goes wrong (as it invariably will) you, the teacher will be the sole person held accountable.
I hope tomorrow goes well. This has eaten up a year of my life and thousands of dollars.
***
In related news, New York City finally closed a charter school:
Ross Global, a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school with 400 students, faced problems from the start, alarming parents when it failed to come up with a safety plan for evacuating students from Lower Manhattan in case of emergencies, parents interviewed on Monday said. By the end of the first year, it had cycled through four principals; it is now on its sixth.
"The idea was fabulous; it still sounds good," said Ayo Harrington, who backed Ross Global at its opening and sent her granddaughter there for three years. "But making it happen was something else."
More than 40 percent of teachers left each year, and 77 percent left last year, the city said. The situation bottomed out last year, when the school moved into its permanent home, a shared public school building on 11th Street in the East Village.
Mrs. Ross and her backers spent $3 million making the school look "like an Ikea showroom, with working gas fireplaces, lounges and daybeds in the hallways," said Mariama Sanoh, 32, who had three children at the school. But in the classrooms, there was often chaos.
"The middle school was extremely violent," said Ms. Sanoh, who has since withdrawn her children. "There were students cursing, breaking chairs, out of control, and there was no strong disciplinary action. Children just knew they would be suspended for several days and come back."
Charles Hosang, 35, withdrew his third-grade son after three years because of a "very bad bullying problem."
"At first, it seemed very nice, with two teachers in every classroom, but as it went on things started disappearing little by little," he added, mentioning benefits like Saturday school.
The results, once strong, took a turn for the worse this year; when the state toughened grading standards, 26 percent of students passed the state English test and 33 percent passed math.
They're not the be-all and end-all solution that everyone makes them out to be.