I was going to limit myself to one post per day, for a zillion reasons, but in just the last few hours, I seem to have acquired many more readers.
Thanks for visiting, I hope you come back, and I will continue to post information about how you can improve teaching conditions, agitate for change, bring common sense to education reform, and work on your own sh*t so if you want to get out, you can.
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But for now, enjoy The Funny: (there is potty language, so do not proceed if your eyes might be scalded by the "b" word)
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31134
Thursday, August 13, 2009
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I taught severely handicapped students in a public school-Texas. I became ill-took off (FMLA). Returned to work-reassigned to teach resource classes. "Supposedly" the numbers in Life Skills had dropped across the district so my remaining students were sent to a lower performing campus. I had purchased materials over my 14+ years in the district. I inquired as to where my personal teaching materials were? I was assured that they were locked "safely" in the closet of my former classroom and I could get them on the last day of the school year. When I got to the closet it was bare to the walls. I had been lied to. Did I get my belongings back? NO! Did my national teacher organization assist me with this at all? NO! They informed me it was a civil matter and the teacher organization did not handle those issues-so what the heck are they for exactly?!? A school district is considered a governmental agency and is protected from this sort of litigation. (So I guess if you have a criminal mind you should work for a public school district or the government because you are protected even when you act in an unethical manner.) Only months later, after filing a lawsuit with the police and them sending a report to my personal insurance company was I able to recoop some of my loss financially though everything I had lost was in perfectly good condition it was depreciated drastically. As you can imagine filing a police report about your district makes you a very popular employee. It was incredibly stressful and my illness flared up again and I had to take (FMLA) again. While I was out on FMLA I was sort of harassed by human resources. I finally resigned. The pathetic thing about this entire situation is that it was total retaliation. I began teaching for this district in the fall of 1995 after receiving my M. Ed. in Special Education. I loved my job! I was great at my job! I poored my own money into my job to make it a more effective and meaningful learning experience for my students. Then in 1998 my sister sued the district I worked for as my neice has autism and was not receiving an appropriate education. Well, though not usual for a parent to win against a public school district my sister did win as my neice's teacher had tampered with documents like my neice's report card with liquid paper after my sister had already made a copy of the original report card before signing it and returning it to the school. It was a huge mess and the district administrators in the Special Education department pressured me to have her call off the law suit. I told them I had a normal child and I had to respect her decision to sue in order to do what is best for the ultimate best outcome and education of her own child. Well, a couple of years after my sister won the lawsuit on behalf of my neice my sister took my neice out of the district. Since my neice no longer attended the district I taught in and they could not retaliate against my neice to get "even" with my sister I became the target in their twisted game. Currently, I am not teaching though I miss working with students with disabilities terribly. I want to return to the classroom but I am still stunned at what I went through considering all my effort, time, money and energy I put into my job only to be stolen from and lied to. My daughter is nineteen and a sophomore in college. After what I have been through I have informed her that she may major in anything she chooses and I will pay for college but if she majors in Education I will no longer support her. Educators are far too qualified and educated to be treated in the manner we are treated. We are treated as though we have never gone to college at all. Public education sucks even at it's best here in good ole' Texas. Will I teach again? I hope so. Will I ever be able to considering what I went through...I do not know. I hope that nobody ever has to go through anything like I have been through.
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