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.”
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