Follow up to Leopard Geckos... and also worst day yet

note: this blog is a continuation of one posted on friendster. if you want to see previous posts, check out: http://neka.blogs.friendster.com/nobody_likes_ms_aro/

I'm probably going to be deleting it as soon as I archive the posts from there- if I can put them here without too much trouble I'll do that, but it may be more trouble than it's worth...

and onward blogward...

A quick funny for those folks waiting for the update on Leopard Geckos...

"What were you THINKING?"

"How'd you know it wasn't mine?" Spoken completely seriously, of course.

"I read it."

"Oh."

Onto more depressing stuff...

So Thursday I swing by the special ed office to grab a donut on my prep, and Ms. Sel stops me to ask about my caseload. This has been a continuing issue all year, because technically in my class of 25 kids only 4 of them are part-time (the level of special ed I am there to service) despite the fact that something like 10 of them have IEPs. I've been told all year that they would give me a split-level caseload and I would just absorb IEPs for the extra kids, mostly the resource kids. I realize this sounds like gibberish to anyone not familiar with special ed, but the details aren't really that important. Evidently in the last two weeks, a huge surplus of kids has walked into the building that all have resourse level IEPs. I still am not sure exactly who made this decision, or how, but as the special ed teacher with the lowest caseload, they decided to dissolve my class and make me a resource teacher. Starting next week.

I cannot even start to list the things that are wrong with this situation. Legally, I understand the decision and why they did it. But for those of you who are unfamiliar with special ed, I made an analogy to explain to my mom, who's a latin teacher. Imagine you're a Latin teacher, or a French teacher. One day you're swinging by the office because you want to grab a donut on your prep, and the head of the language department says,

"Oh, hey, we got this situation. A bunch of kids transferred in that are all registered to take Spanish, and since both your French class and the other French class are small, all your kids are going to that class now and you'll be teaching Spanish. We don't have a classroom for you, so you're going to be teaching a class in the library while there's two other classes going on. By the way, this starts beginning of next week. We haven't given you a schedule yet, or explained how to teach Spanish, or given you Spanish books, or given you any time to wrap the projects you have going with your kids or even to tell your kids what's about to happen. It's okay, kids are resilient, they'll deal- why do you care if they're upset? We haven't told the other French teacher yet, either, or the teachers who are on your grade team that also teach your kids, or the teachers you're sharing the library with. You might or might not have a desk or a locker like you're supposed to have in the union contract. We don't know when we'll even tell you what room you're supposed to go to. You should just know. I don't know what you're upset about- Teacher X has twenty kids on his caseload, you're switching four for eight!"

Now while I'm obviously being bitter and cynical about the whole thing, the sad part is that very little of that was sarcasm. As I was having this conversation with Ms. Sel, Ms. W. calls on the walkie for me- she had Cyrus with another kid from my class doing a reading program, and Cyrus had evidently stopped talking and balled up, so she called to see if he would come to talk to me. I run and grab Cyrus and walk him back up with me and give him a piece of a donut- it was supposed to make me feel better, so maybe it would make him feel better. And I start to explain what I just found out but was at that point numb to, I guess in shock. Cyrus listens quietly and doesn't say much. I wanted him to know especially because he's one of the ones I'm closest to, and above all I don't want these kids to think I abandoned them- especially a kid like Cyrus who has come so far from last year. I kept trying to push Ms. Sel for more information but she spent virtually the entire rest of the period on the phone. The bell rings and Cyrus and I walk back to class.

As we walk back into class, Cyrus looks at me, and sadly but with the definite intent to cause trouble announces first thing, "Ms. A's leaving us."
The class looked at my face for confirmation and then disrupted into mild chaos.
"WHAT? Ms. A, what does he mean? You're not leaving, right? Are you leaving the school? Why are you leaving? Do you want to leave?"

Huffy, a tall thin kid who's somewhat of a class clown, got everyone quiet. "Naw, naw, naw, naw y'all. Ms. A, you can't leave. If you try to leave I'll break your legs with a sledgehammer so you can't go and leave us."

Now that's affection.

One of my girls started crying, and that was just it for me. I felt worse and worse about it the entire day. I went over to N's house right after school, mostly to tell either N or J about it, but neither were home when I got there so I pretty much just went in every door until someone was home and then ranted about it to each person as they got home in turn. I kept waiting (and still am) for it to feel better, but I started feeling physically ill from the whole situation. Went back to AC and ranted about it to my parents. My mom told me I had their support if I went in and told off the principal and got written up for insubordination. Went home, burst into tears to Ems, woke up the next morning and started throwing up. I went into school anyway- I didn't know if M was going to make it into school- she hasn't been there in a week because of this flu or stomach virus that I guess I now have, and I didn't want to have the kids have a subsitute on their last day with me. It was probably a mistake. I threw on jeans and a sweatshirt, but felt awful and looked awful. I made it into school a couple minutes late (having only just decided I was going to try to go and make it through as much as I could), and walked over to my class to find it locked, although everyone telling me M was there. Evidently she got put on some new medication that made her have some kind of breakdown in the office as she was signing in. So I sign in, and as I let all my kids in go to ask S. and L. about M. (I know I need better names here... S is also the other Ms. A, the house coordinator, and L is my other partner teacher). Just talking about the whole situation is enough to make me lose it again, and I start crying. I tried to get myself together in Ms. A's office, unsuccessfully, and had to go hide in the nurse's office. I have almost never in my life been in a situation where I couldn't stop crying when I had to, for a work situation. Gotta say it's not the most professional I've ever felt, but then I don't really feel like I was treated particularly professionally either. My kids were really good about it. They mostly just asked if I was sick, and I said yes. I made it back in after advisory but just put on a movie- I couldn't even stand up my stomach was clenched so badly. Third period I went to the roster chair to tell her I needed to leave early. As I was going around getting my stuff together I stopped by S's office.

"Have you talked to the principal yet?" she asked.
"No. I don't feel up to it today," I said, my eyes seriously red from crying.
"Honestly, I think she should see how you feel before you leave. She needs to know this isn't just a decision that isn't going to affect everyone. It is having a serious affect on her teachers and she needs to know that, and to really see it. I think you should go see her before you leave today."

So I went, and waited for what felt like twenty minutes for her to get off the phone, and unloaded pretty much everything. I think I was probably toeing the line of insubordination, but given that I was also sick, and in tears, and obviously devastated by the whole situation, I don't know there was a lot she could have said. I told her a lot of what I've already written- I understand the decision, but the way it was done sent the message that the administration has a total lack of regard for the work that the teachers put into their classrooms every day, which is something I hear on the building committee on a regular basis. I called it unprofessional and demeaning and hurtful to the kids, and a dismissal of the potential of the kids in my classroom who probably could have made AYP on the PSSAs this year but who are not going to without their regular reading teacher, three weeks before the PSSA... I was probably in there forty minutes, and at the end I felt at least emptied if not better. I don't know that anything good came of it, except that I hope I made her feel guilty...

You hear so many stories of the kids who have umpteen substitutes in the room. And part of the reason people join something like TFA is to at the very least give kids a chance to not have to go through something like that. And no matter how much you put into that class, sometimes you get forced to anyway. It makes me so crazy... these kids and their families take the heat for so much, and of course us teachers take the blame for everything that goes wrong with their communities. But then a stupid law made by someone who hasn't seen the inside of a classroom since he was in school just forces an administration which is already overburdened and exhausted into the lesser (maybe) of the evils... Of course the kids are not succeeding, the entire system is set up for them to fail. And I just got forced into being a part of that failure, two forced failed models in a row.

So anyway, spent the last two days in bed. I was supposed to go snowboarding this weekend... that's out. If I'm feeling recovered I may try to drink my troubles away tonight. I'm seriously at a loss for anything else to do to feel better right now.