Nine years ago I had two job offers: one as fulltime faculty at our little local college, teaching composition; and the other for our local school district, teaching writing and art in juvenile corrections. The juvenile corrections job was offered by the district, not the facility. Schoolteachers are hired to go “inside” and teach kids. In this case, two teachers split the day –and the other teacher was a dynamic young woman whose approach was just like mine: engage, enliven, give experiences, care about kids, care about learning!
I didn’t want a school district job. I liked teaching college kids, mature learners who took responsibility for their behaviors. I wasn’t ready for resistance and the sneaky snotty behavior that sometimes pops up in public school. I was prepared to turn down the sch0ol district, but the Youth in Custody director offered a tour of the facility.
I fell in love with it. The YIC director stood in the parking lot after and said, “You need to take this job, Cathy. This job is for you.”
The program inside the facility was all about fresh starts, new learnings, and trying out new behaviors. Thus I came to teach piano lessons, modern dance, personal essay, anatomy and physiology, recorder playing, all kinds of painting, drawing, writing–singing! That’s just a small selection of all the interesting stuff we do.
Three years later, part of the facility closed due to budget constraints, and I was asked (politely, kindly) to teach half day in the alternative high school and later in a junior high. By that time, I had added a visual arts endorsement to my masters in literature and writing (and secondary certificate), so I became an art teacher. I like teaching art at my junior high–with a principal and staff that loves art and supports all my meanderings.
Nine years later, the economy crashes and our budgets are slashed, then slashed again. Our district loses more than twenty teachers, and they must figure out how to staff all the schools.
The alternative high loses three fulltime staff. The district assigns the juvenile corrections job to another teacher all day, instead of splitting the day, and assigns me to the alternative high. I’ve taught there before. It’s a good place, and I love the staff there.
But that means I must leave the thing I do best–teaching in lock-up, teaching the kids in juvenile corrections. Think about it. It takes a certain mindset to deal with kids ages 10-18, with all kinds of problems, academic levels, mental illnesses, criminal records, home situations. You never know who’s going to be there on any particular day. You need to be able to be friendly but firm. You need to be funny and smart. You need to love kids who have been hurt, kicked around, abused, neglected, and punished by difficult lives.
I’m that person. I “get” the facility mission to help teach kids to live better, differently, more clean, more vibrant, more interested. I love the staff working in the facility and they love me: we’re family. This is longterm commitment here.
Boom! Next year, I’m gone. I can hardly breathe when I think of it, and I’ve known now for more than a month.
I know the district is dealing with nearly-impossible exigencies, but I still wish that we could remember that it’s kids we are serving–and these kids, these locked-up kids, these neglected kids–they need serving, too.
It seems like every year it becomes less and less about the kids and more and more about tests and bureaucratic red tape. I teach in a high poverty area of a large urban city. Lots of blue collar kids and kids from difficult home situations. These kids need more help and funding, as well as the best teachers. But it seems like we get less funding each year and the bright, young, vibrant teachers see it as too difficult. After 2-3 years, they leave. Right now, it seems like education is a world turned upside down. All the priorities are well-meaning, but cruel and serve exactly the opposite ends. Hope they sort it out at your end somehow and get you back where you belong soon.
Thanks for the kind comment. I like what you say, that the administrators mean well, but the outcomes are “cruel and serve exactly the opposite ends.” It makes us feel powerless and unable to speak, to change things.
Cathy, I hear you and feel your hurt. Recently, I received a “reassignment” letter from the district. I am now considered a “forced transfer”, and have to find another school. My ESL students have been successful because they are getting the service they need, based on their grade and language level. Many of them I’ve taught for 4 years, since they arrived not knowing how to say “hello”. Now, I won’t see some of them transition to high school. The district has composed a “formula”, where lower-level ESL kids are “worth more” than more proficient ones. There are over 80 expected kids for next September, and there will not be 2 fulltime ESL teachers to teach them the language of their new country. Even if I have a half-time slot, I still need to see as many kids. Then there’s the time it takes to travel to another school, where the same thing will happen. So twice as many kids get half of what the state says they should have of ESL.
None of these situations make any logical sense at all.
Roz, Your “forced transfer” sounds so much like mine! It’s mind-boggling and heartbreaking. I can’t believe that there are only part-time people serving your ESL kids. Another craziness. I am sorry you have to go through this, too.
Cathy
I have worked at two different school districts, and both have are in the same financial situation. Terrible! I have seen many teachers RIF’ed due to budget cuts and the need to keep district funds a float. Even though the budget is above water, the kids are sinking. Class sizes are at an ultimate high, students are not getting interventions they need because there is not enough staff to help. I am fortunate enough to have not been a part of the teachers who have lost their jobs, but I am still nervous for the future. Cathy, even you were working for nine years and you got moved.
Are long-employed teachers losing their positions where you live? I have always assumed they’d be protected. It’s true–districts scramble to make budgets work, but the human toll is devastating.
Thank you for writing.
Cathy