A Teacher's Aide Journal #3

     The day started much the same as yesterday; the teacher’s aides gathered in the lounge and waited until noon before going to their respective stations.  Registration for students started at 11:30 that day and continued later into the evening hours to accommodate those parents who work and are not able to get to the school during regular hours.  I was on my way to the cafeteria to do the same mindless task as the day before, when Mr. LaSorda intercepted me.  He noticed where I was going so he thought to tell me that our assignments were changed.  Apparently, the other teacher’s aides who planned to call in using the excuse of prior appointments decided to show up for work.  Being that we were asked to report two days earlier than our contracted days, they believed the union would support them if administration took action against them.   Despite the obvious inconvenience, Mr. LaSorda seemed unaffected.  He told me that there was a paper in the main office on the countertop with new assignments.   When I entered the office earlier, I had no cause to notice the stack of papers on the countertop and so I simply passed it by when I walked in to punch the time clock.  Mr. LaSorda followed me in, and when I took one of the papers in hand, he looked slightly over my shoulder while standing beside me and we saw that I was re-assigned to the bookroom where I started yesterday.   There were two other teacher aides assigned to the room when I arrived.  They were putting labeled bar codes in the American Literature books.  The librarian printed more barcoded labels and I placed 300 of them in the new Trigonometry books.  The task took three hours as I moved slowly knowing that there would be nothing else for me to do after I completed my task.

     After lunch, I stopped at the Athletic Director’s office.  He was in the middle of listening to voice mails.  When he was finished, we talked for a while.  He asked me how long had I been at the school.  I told him since 2010 (4 years).  I was a teacher in Chicago Public Schools but left because I thought I would have a chance to work in this school district and be closer to home and my children. Furthermore, I grew up in these communities and upon aspiring to teach, I so desired to teach in the same school.  We spoke about the three administrations that I served under since coming here.  The first was a lady, Ms. Walker, who recommended me for a permanent teaching position after she observed me as a long term substitute for a freshman English class when a teacher was away on medical leave.  Back then, I thought there was a reasonable chance that if I showed my work ethic and my ability to properly prepare students for academic success as shown by test scores, I would get hired full time.  Unfortunately, Ms. Walker had bumped heads with the district school board members - the president in particular who was rumored to have some family connection.  As rumor has it, she “stood up” to the board, but was soon after escorted out of the building by security one Tuesday morning.  The students did a brief protest, the local news sent a van out to record the protest, but it was for nothing.

I came to admire and respect Ms. Walker while working under her administration.  She was not the type of principal who was willing to throw a student under the bus for disciplinary reasons. Because of this, teachers were quick to criticize her as being too easy on them.  She was, however tough on the teachers.  She did not like the teachers cutting corners on little things.  She had no patience for teachers coming late to meetings or not keeping record of telephone logs for parent contacts.  Her discipline pedagogy was centered in the belief that parents and teachers should work first together and if those means were exhausted, only then should the deans be involved.  The teachers wanted her to be a hammer on the students, instead, she was more of a hammer on the teachers and she demanded that teachers followed various prototypes centered on following curriculum and keeping documentations.  

        I later saw Ms. Walker at a fast food restaurant and she told me that she recommended three African American male teachers, none of whom were hired by the district board.  She went on to tell me that in the entire district, which was made up of three schools, there is not one African American male English teacher and there had not been one in all the time she worked as principal.  She told me that I might have a lawsuit if I did the due diligence.  Oddly enough, three years later I was told the same thing by the athletic director who interviewed me for a track and field job.    He recommended me for coach’s position and I was offered the job when the human resources secretary called me.  I accepted, and before it was placed on the agenda for the school board approval, the same secretary called me to say that the offer was rescinded.  According to the athletic director, he was told to start the interviews over again and include two people who did not have an application on file before the application deadline.  I was asked to re-interview but the job was given to some guy who previously worked as track coach at one of the sister schools in the district.  This coach, while working at North High School, failed to rank higher than last place in the conference competition for over 5 years running.  Perhaps there was some truth behind the rumors that he was the godson of a school board member.  The athletic director sympathized with me.  I believed that if it was up to him, the people who work in the building would get preference over those who do not work in the building.  Ironically enough, none of the head coaches of any of the sports teams work in the building.  Interestingly enough student participation is low.  So now I work at one school in the district (South) and coach another (North).  It sometimes rubs the students the wrong way when they see me in class all day, only to then get on the track to coach their rivals.  I dare say, the kids I coach often beat the ones I teach – and I was only a volunteer coach at the time. 

The athletic director, who also functions as an assistant principal, informed me that the school is academically ahead of where it was a year ago.  Last year’s test scores showed improvement and some behavioral issues have decreased.  I informed him that after Ms. Walker was gone, the staff’s general opinion of the administration that took over was incredibly low.  They were seen as a puppet administrations – very incompetent.  I told him that the overall staff view is rather positive towards the current administration.  The current principal seems to rub people the right way.  The assistant principal / athletic director and I parted when he mentioned that he needed to do his rounds, being that this day he was in charge.  He was interested in checking in with the workers at the registration tables in the cafeteria.

                I returned to the book room where I had no work to do.  The bookroom was not very active due to the fact that most people could not get past the previous stations before being turned away.  The secretaries at table two were, in my words, “Registration Nazis.”  They were very particular, due mainly to their instructions, to the documentation presented by the parents.  The rules are so strict, I don’t know if parents would be able to properly prove residency.  There is a big concern about children registering for school when they do not live within the district.  I don’t know where the concern comes from because the people in the community don’t seem to care.  There are a lot of stereotypes that the children who live outside the district come to our schools with gang affiliations and cause trouble.  I’ve never seen any evidence to support that claim.  From what I’ve noticed, the children who are commuting from the city are obviously well behaved or if not, are no different from the ones who legitimately live here.  There is an argument about the tax payer’s concern; however, I’ve never heard the tax payer sentiment at board meetings because they generally have no voice as they do not attend. The demographic area is diverse between African Americans who represent the majority in three supporting communities.  There is a large Hispanic representation in two other communities and then there is a majority white population in five others.  This being said, most of the white families support the catholic schools for education and they live in the communities with the largest tax base.  Equal parts of the African American and Hispanic population come from rental properties as those who are homeowners.  

                After lunch, I returned to the bookroom, opened an American Lit book to read.  The other teacher aides found ways to occupy their time.  The NJROTC students and the book clerk simply conversed until it was time to go.  We did not have more than 15 people come to get books since lunch time.   At one point I got up and took a walk through the building to the cafeteria to get a look at the length of the lines – they were not long at all. 

I circled around, and heading back to the book room, I saw Mr. Thompson and Ms. Yarbrough – two other teacher aides sitting outside of the student career center.  Inside the center was Mr. Ross who handed out class schedules.  Mr. Thompson asked where had I been, I told him that I was in the book room.  He inferred that my tasks were to scan, label, and bar code new and old books.  I told him that scanning was above my pay grade and both he and Ms. Yarbrough laughed.  Then Yarbrough told me that she was surprised that I returned.  Curious to know why – being that she and I never had a conversation before – I asked her to explain.  She expressed that she thought the job of teacher aide was beneath me and as far as that went, she thought the school and its “mess” was also something that I wouldn’t put up with.  I responded by saying that “If you know all of this going in, you shouldn’t have a problem with it all.” 

                She verbally confirmed that I knew the situation of the school before I became a teacher’s aide.  I again confirmed.  Then I tried to change the negative mood by saying “Be the change. Don’t be the person who just keeps the status quo.”

                She replied that the change was to leave.  Our conversation finished with me expressing my belief that if she had a dream and a goal, then she should pursue it.  “If you die, die on E, leave no dream unfulfilled.”  I said.

In my teaching career, I spent time at a variety of schools.  One was a college preparatory school with a majority of Hispanic students (49%).  It was a selective enrollment school.  The other was a Law Academy.  It was very diverse with over 70 different ethnic groups represented.  According to a news show, it was considered the United Nations of High School.  At these two schools, there was an overall positive feeling about the school from the staff.  In addition, there were things in place that inspired school pride.  The pep-rallies were exciting.  Students painted their faces, the bands played, the cheerleaders cheered.  The freshman class yelled their graduation year numbers and the other classes responded.  The overall feeling at the beginning of each school year was positive, hopeful and everyone seemed to anticipate the changes for the better.  At This school, as well as my third school, the feeling was definitely negative.  In this case, I saw the hostility built between parents, students and support staff caused by a variety of things that could have been avoided.  First, the fight between parents and support staff over the birth certificates was unnecessary.  At the end of the previous school year, the regional administrator in a meeting informed the support staff that a missing birth certificate cannot legally prevent a person from registering their student.  In this case, parents were sent home for not having a birth certificate.  Parents did not take this well.  Secondly, support staff – teacher’s aides in particular – were not happy with giving up their last three days of summer vacation.  The terms of the support staff contract allowed for specific amount of days – the three days early and the lingering threat of disciplinary actions for not coming, made many teacher’s aides resistant.  On the overall appearance – despite the obvious efforts of Mr. LaSorda, the entire registration experience seemed unorganized and hostile on many different levels.  This is something that I noticed missing from the schools that we consider “good schools.”

A Teacher's Aide's Adventure #2

The End of Day One

When parents came to register their students, just three days before the first day of school, they needed to stop at station one to show that they had all of the correct documentation: proof of residency, lunch form, and registration packet completely filled out. Station one was the band room where there were approximately 150 seats.  The parents and some of them with their students were asked to sit in rows in an order that reflected the order in which they arrived.  They snaked around the rows so that when security called for a number of them, that number of people would leave the room and go to the cafeteria where they would stand in line for station two. This could take up to 30 minutes before they were called from station one.   Station two was where the residency check was scrutinized.  The parents needed to have state ID, two utility bills with names that matched, and a birth certificate.  Then they were sent to station three with the registration packet that I was supposed to file after the people at my table checked to make sure that all of the information was properly filled out in the registration packet:  emergency phone numbers, medical information etc.  In what seemed to me like a terrible waste of time and double work was that as the people at my table verified the information, they inputted that information into the computer system.  When that was finished, the parents were sent to station four and the nurse would check their shot records.  Station five was where they paid their fees and station six was where they got their schedule.  Finally, they reached station seven which was the book room. With them they carried a form that was more like a check list to indicate that they had successfully passed each of the previous stations.

I sat at station three and spoke to the ladies at my table.  It was here that I continued my conversation with Ms. Roberts. It was obvious to me that Ms. Roberts was a devout Christian lady as she was willing to accept the injuries she received at work, while working, as the result her own misdoings.  She believed that the injuries to her wrist from the excessive typing were her punishment for the sin of not following the doctor’s orders.  After all, as she put it, God put the doctor in that position to help her and she did not follow his instructions.  Her actions were almost the same as not following God’s instruction.  When I asked her if she thought that she was justly compensated for her hard work, she mentioned that she works for God and not for the district or for the school.  She said that God would give her all the compensation she needed.  It was God, in her opinion that required her to be here for these children.

                

When lunch time came, the ladies were told by Mr. LaSorda to rotate but Ms. Warfield did not.  Due to the fact that I did not know the computer system and was not qualified to input information, Ms. Warfield felt that it was a bad idea for her to leave for lunch as the line had significantly grown.  My job was to simply file the registration packets by alphabetical order.  Ms. Warfield went on in a semi-grieved manner about how so many people waited until the last minute to come and register their children.  She mentioned that these people had the entire summer to register and she did not expect so many of them to be here at that moment. 

               

It was true what she said, the school district started registration for this school year at the end of the last year.  It was not June before the registration packets were given to students and parents had a deadline to make to receive a discount in registration fees.  After that deadline, a second deadline was made for mid-July.  The mid-July deadline was for a $100 discount on registration fees. 

Something about this strikes me ill.  First of all, I am appalled that it is required for parents to pay anything to a public school system.  The state of Illinois allows schools to make charges to parents for “supplies.” This is part of the state statutes.  However, the schools do not have to disclose what supplies the funds are supposed to cover.  This allows a variety of charges from all schools and districts.  I know of some Chicago school – the selective enrollment schools – charging over $300 per student.  I have a friend who literally had to pay over $900 to register three children in school.   The fact that the school gave $100 off for those who registered in July seems to prove that the registration fee was not going to supplies.  It just makes no sense to me because any business will estimate an operating cost before a fiscal year begins.  That cost, in theory, should be divided by the expected amount of children - it makes no sense that giving $100 off for an undetermined amount of students would cover the cost of supplies that are expected to be needed.  This makes me believe that the registration fee is used for something else.  In addition to all of this, there are fees to pay for students who join sports and students who take art classes, computer classes, and other electives.  If they have already paid $200 at registration, why do they have to pay more for these classes?

It was at that time during the influx that I had an epiphany.    I noticed that each person who came to our table took an average of eleven minutes to complete the registration process.  The ladies looked at the paper packets that the parents brought to the table and then the ladies double checked in the computer to make sure the information on the paper was identical to what was put in the computer.  In some cases, parents were irate and claimed that they did not have their registration packets because they mailed them to the school as the packet stated was to be done.  This meant that one of the secretaries had the tedious task of entering the information from the packets into the computer system.  Obvious there were errors for various reasons that ranged from incomplete forms to illegible handwriting.   At the same time, the information for returning students was already in the computer system and the ladies at my table spent time updating the information – telephone numbers were the most common updates.   At other points, the ladies simply asked questions as if they were reading a script from the computer.  I thought that this system could have been adjusted and perhaps easier if the information was completed by the parents online.  Some parents were disgruntled about having to physically bring in a birth certificate when there was one on file from the previous year as some of the children were returning students.  I heard Ms. Sims explain that she was not expected to go through the files and pull birth certificates to verify the required information relating to guardianship.  I am sensitive to the financial needs of the school system, but I could not help but think that if someone was to calculate all of the man hours used on that day and the salary associated with those hours coalesced with the man hours associated with physically receiving registration packets in person or by mail and inputting that information into the computer system – entering the wrong information and re-entering information factored in with the time to deal with disgruntle and irate parents ; it should have been more cost effective to pay for an online system to allow parents to input their registration information.  I mentioned this to the ladies who sat with me and we all eventually agreed that the district’s lack of foresight, ability to manage such a system, or whatever the reason was gave more personal benefit to us all as we were getting paid for our work and if the system was better, we would be at a loss of income. 

The Teacher’s aides were asked to start work three days earlier than their contracted days.  As a result, we were paid $120 for each day of work.  Obviously I may not have the calculations correct as I don’t know how expensive such a web based system would be for the school district.  However, the district has three schools and teacher aides to help at all three.  This would mean that the extra funds were to cover payments for approximately 25 teacher aides.  At that time, I did not know that most of the secretaries and registrar were 12 month employees so the district incurred no extra cost for them to work.  However, I continue to hold the belief that for the sake of accuracy and time efficacy, the cost effectiveness of an online registration system would prove its value.

The day was nearly ended when the NJROTC commander purchased pizza for the students who were helping out.  Master Chief ordered more pizza than what the students could eat and there was so much pizza left over that they, out of their kindness, shared the pizza with the staff members who were in the cafeteria, the security in the hallways and other teacher’s aides who were nearby.  We also shared with the parents who were registering as most of us were not hungry having already eaten lunch.  We were sensitive to the fact that most of the parents at that time were had been in the building for over two hours waiting to reach us. 

We did not know when we were supposed to leave for the day.  The general consensus was that we left at 3:00, but I stayed later because the letter I received in the mail indicated a 3:30 end time.  The other aides, with the exception of Mr. Ross, seemed to be unclear about the start and end times for the rest of the week.  Ms. Thompson and another aide indicated that they would have doctor’s appointments the following day since our work time was, according to the letter we received, from 11:00 a.m. until 6 p.m.   Ms. Hernandez expressed at that time her aggravation with being called in to start work three days earlier than originally scheduled from contract negotiations.  It was 3:15 and I had been filing paper work for four hours now and it was time to go.  I went to file my last two packets of paper work when The Special Ed secretary informed me that she was told by the main office secretary that the paper work gathered at my table was not to be filed.  I returned with the two packets and informed my fellow table co-workers of what I was told.  Ms. Warfield who was an academic counselor explained that she had given that task to me at the bequest of the Assistant Principal, Mr. LaSorda.  By this time, I needed to punch out so that I would not receive any disciplinary action for “milking the clock.”   

It was at that time that I received a text message to call the Track Coach at North High School.  Our school district is made of three schools.  North High School was the original one made and started in 1906.  South High School was built and started 50 years later and in 2002 the third school Central was opened.    Central is ironically enough the center piece of controversy in the district.  It is a selective enrollment school that accepts students based on seventh and eighth grade test scores as well as a school test for entrance.   I had been a volunteer coach for him three years at North High School as a track and field coach, although I work at South.  The assistant who was a paid coach for the track team at North, left for a different school system that paid more.  The district had previously fired all the coaches and everyone had to reapply.  I went the entire summer without an interview and at this time, the coach told me that there was an open position for a cross country assistant coach and that I should apply.  I felt uncomfortable in this as I had already spent two months with the football team as a volunteer and the cross country season started two weeks ago.  The cross country coaches at both schools are the sprint coaches for the track teams and although I am better suited for the job, I would be the assistant.  This would mean that I would have to leave the football team.

It perplexed me that when all of the coaches in the district were made to re-apply for their jobs, I was not given an interview at all.  I am baffled at what was in the resumes of the coaches who were hired.  At North, the boys and girls coaches had no cross country experience and never competed in one event.  At South, the female coach Ms. Green did run cross country but the boys coach never ran cross country at all.  On my resume, I not only ran cross country, I coached a championship team in the Chicago Public Schools.  I can’t imagine what in the world did three of the four head coaches say in their interviews that caused the athletic directors to choose them as head coaches.  Furthermore, two of the four coaches – the two at North – had coached collectively for 10 years as cross country coaches and in their times produced not one team to place higher than last in the conference.  That’s 10 collective years of last place, and after re-applying for their jobs they were given another chance.  I thought it was laughable that I was asked to be the assistant coach after the season had already began. At that point, I had already committed myself to coaching the football team as a volunteer defensive coordinator for the freshman team. I had no intention of going back on my word.

When I punched out, I noticed that all of the aides had already punched out at 3:00.  I gathered my belongings and then went to the field house where I waited for football players.  While doing my job at the bookroom as well as in the cafeteria, I actively promoted the football program to the incoming freshman students.  I invited them to a speed and agility workout that same day at 4:00.  I had previously informed the coaches that I would give this training Monday, Wednesday, and Friday because these were my early days for work – according to the letter I received.  I told the freshman and sophomore teams on the last day of summer camp and Mr. Ross, reiterated what I said.  He also told them that I was not getting paid for my work with them and that they should take advantage of my expertise as well as appreciating the extra time that I was willing to spend with them.  With all of that there were two of the three freshmen whom I invited and one second string lineman from the sophomore team who was by far the least talented of them all.  We did agility drills, sprints on the indoor track, and downhill sprints outside.  I talked to them about being tenacious and determined at everything they do for that will give them success in whatever they aspire to accomplish.  Then we ended practice.  

A Teacher's Aide Journal: The Beginning

I've taught in high schools for eleven years and now I am not a teacher but a teacher aide.  I often wondered about what makes good schools good and bad schools bad.  I've seen distinctive differences in them and before I decided to conclude whether the school district where I now work is good or bad, I thought it wise to journal my experience.  Here is what I experienced.

I arrived and punched the time clock at 7:30 a.m. and joined the other Teacher’s Aides in the hallway outside of the main office.  They were waiting for instructions and talking about their summer vacation when I joined them.  I stood for a while until I noticed that no instructions would be given soon; so, I left them to place my duffel-bag that I often carry with me in the teacher’s lounge.  When I returned, Mr. Ross had been given a small group of papers, each bearing the name of a teacher’s aide with working assignments.  He passed the assignments out to those aides whose names were on the papers.  Now, Mr. Ross is often full of jokes, so as he passed out the papers, he took on a slight air of a condescending aristocrat.  It was obvious that he was making fun of the administrator who gave the papers to him.  I was the last one called and when I read the paper, I saw that I was assigned to work in the book room.

Being assigned to the book room meant nothing, as there was no book room attendant hired for the position over the summer.  The door was locked and no one was around to give further instructions to me.  This dilemma held true for everyone else and so we all retreated to the teacher’s lounge until those persons who we were to assist arrived.   It was not until 9:00 a.m. that we were able to do work.  Until then, I entertained myself by looking up baseball statistics of minor league players while my colleagues were busy in conversation behind me.  The teacher’s lounge was a spacious room with two long tables, one smaller round one, a surplus of chairs around each of the tables, eight computers – only three of them were working – two six foot sofas, a copy machine, two bathrooms, a microwave, and two soda machines.  There are four windows in the room. One was opened so that the sound of the lawn mowers were heard easily and this caused my colleagues to talk loudly around the table -  so loudly that I could not filter them out and was pulled into listening to what they said.

At the risk of sounding condescending and arrogant, I do not generally find the conversations of my colleagues interesting and do not often participate in them.  I sometimes view their conversations as juvenile in nature and they rarely seem to show a higher level view point.  Sometimes they echo information that is the simple opinion of other people or hearsay, and they present this information as if it is factual.  There were three men aside from me as teacher’s aides: Mr. Ross, Mr. Horne, and Mr. Thompson.  The other seven were women: Yarbrough, Bailey, Taylor, Hernandez, Jenkins, and Dobbs. 

Mrs. Dobbs was married over the summer vacation and her name was changed to Dorsey, but since we already had a Dorsey – who did not report to work that morning – most people continued to call her Ms. Dobbs.  She did not even bother to change her email or computer log in which are both based on names.  They talked a bit about Ms. Dobbs’ wedding and then moved on to speaking about the last meeting we had together before the previous school year ended.  Mrs. Johnson – the department chair of the Special Services department -  had a bit of a conflict with Ms. Rush who told Mrs. Johnson that if she felt uncomfortable about the way some people treated her,  she should first look within to see the problem. What was strange about that meeting was that I expected it to be upbeat with flowered comments and promises about the future.  Ironically, it was just the opposite.  Mrs. Johnson complained to us about how we distract her secretary when we stop and talk to her.  She spoke about how disappointed she was with the aides not being where they were supposed to be and that on many occasions she had to go look for them.  There was one comment made during that meeting by Ms. Dorsey, who recalled a moment when she went to the bathroom to “take a dump” and she suspected that Mrs. Johnson followed her to the bathroom to be certain that she was honest about using it.  Mrs. Johnson also mentioned that there were times when we were in group conversations or in conversations with her secretary and the conversations came to an abrupt end when she entered the room.  She said that she felt disrespected when she asked someone to carry out a task and they did not stop whatever they were doing to do what she asked.  She said that she wanted things to be different in the next school year and that she was going to be more ready to document what she thought was insubordinate behavior.  I had only been in the department for 6 weeks when this conversation took place, so obviously it had nothing to do with me.  It was, at least, entertaining.  At some point during the back and forward bickering I tuned it all out, took out my cell phone, and started to play chess. 

 In retrospect, it is obvious why Ms. Rush felt free to tell the department chair, Mrs. Johnson to look within herself if people had a problem with her.  There was a rumor on that first day we returned to work that she would not be coming back, as she had a job in the next town to the east of us.  They moved from that conversation to speak of others who would not return – Mr. Ortiz who was a certified teacher in Mexico but for some reason was never able to get certified here.  They veered from that conversation to talk about the Color Purple characters which somehow led them to disclose their concerns regarding the dearth of teacher’s aides, especially since at least two people were gone and not replaced.  They were concerned that there would not be enough aides to work in the classrooms, what with Mrs. Johnson’s plans to have multiple aides working as one-on-one student supporters.   That led to a brief discussion of how Ms. Hernandez did not want to work individually with a student having Autism.  Somehow at the end of the last school year Ms. Hernandez was told that she would be assigned to work one-on-one with a Hispanic student whose parents requested that the assistant be a native Spanish speaker.  Ms. Hernandez thought that she should get extra pay for such an assignment because she was singled out.  She was determined not to accept the position and said that she would fight Mrs. Johnson and get union support.

Personally I thought this was uncalled for.  I’m sure that Ms. Hernandez informed the administration in some way by a check mark on the application or verbally that she was a Spanish speaking candidate for the job.  At that point, such information increases ones chance of getting hired and now she suggests that it is unfair for her to work with a student who speaks Spanish just because she is the only one of the aides who can do that job.  Her attitude seemed very petty to me and I thought it was a terrible way to begin the year – she was obviously disgruntled. 

When 9:00 came, I went to the book room to find three NJROTC students already there with assignments to pull books for registered students at the request of the Attendant.  The Librarian was also there, but she had a condition that would not allow her to lift heavy objects or scan bar codes into the computer.  She wanted to teach me how to do it and to perform the task under her code, but the Attendant said she would face disciplinary actions if she allowed me to use her code.  There were four other aides assigned to the book room with me.  They took on the task of placing bar code labels on the inside cover of the new books that were shipped to the school.  These were the new Algebra books; 90 of them with four people setting the labels inside.  I thought four people were enough so I did not help and instead, I waited for instructions to do something else.  There were fewer books than usual because most of the math books were now online.  I learned that the Chemistry books that Special Ed students use in cross categorical/ contained classes were honors Chemistry books.   I was told that the regular Chemistry book would not be used because it was said to be too hard for the children, and that book was also online.  When the labeling was finished, I moved a pile of Algebra books to the other side of the room and then sat down to look through the old honors Chemistry book.  It was at that time that Mr. LaSorda, the assistant principal came and told us that there was help needed in the cafeteria too.  I volunteered and went to the table where two counselors and the registrar were seated.  I was assigned the task of filing the paperwork they gave me. One of the ladies, Mrs. Roberts who I thought was a counselor, showed me her hands and the stitches in them. On her right hand, the stitches were in the palm.  She mentioned that the stitches were the result of working hard and taking few breaks.  I later learned that Ms. Roberts was not a counselor, but a secretary for the counselors.   I mentioned that she may have had a worker’s compensation case.  She did not agree except to say that her husband thought she should not come to work that day, and that she could only blame herself for the injuries due to her frequent refusal to take breaks and use a wrist brace that her doctor prescribed. 

I imagine that in some ways one might think that it is admirable for Mrs. Roberts to accept the idea that her injuries were the result of her own negligence.  I do not agree.  First of all there had to have been something wrong with her wrist before she went to the doctor and was given a brace.  Secondly, she does not consider the reason why she did not take her breaks as required by the support staff contract.  If she did not take her breaks, it seems to me that she felt overwhelmed with work.  I am sure she had some kind of supervisor who should have insisted that she take her breaks and not work through them.  I was astonished at the attitude that the injuries received at work doing the job she was hired to do were her responsibility.  Even if it was, those injuries occurred at work and she owes it to herself to take care of those injuries.  Furthermore, the job owes her just the same.