My district's dirty little secret . . .

I've written a lot about evaluations recently. One of the arguments administrators have made to me when I would talk about evaluations for a teacher, some would become very indignant and proclaim that they are evaluated every single year.

Except they weren't.

In fact, many have not been evaluated for years, some not even since the 1990's! I'll say this about the new superintendent is that he is unearthing a lot of the dysfunction and lack of accountability across the board. There have been rumors and whispers that administrators (hopefully some of the worst, like the one who has been caught routinely sleeping at her desk w/pictures to prove it, instead of doing her job) will be out of a job within the next year or so.

I can't remember when the last administrator has been let go for incompetence. A huge reason for this is because there have been no evaluations and no documentation, which an attorney would have a field day with. It makes all the sense in the world now why things are so very messed up in this district.

I'm glad that the very bright light on past incompetence is happening and that the focus isn't just on so-called "bad teachers."

I think some of our kids have lost hope . . .

Last week-end my daughter received word that one of her friends was shot & killed in a random act of violence.  Two days ago, she found out that another friend (another young man) committed suicide.

I can count on one hand the number of friends & acquaintances that have died since I've become an adult.  She has experienced at least twice that since she was in high school. Not all of them have died at the hands of strangers, some of them have died due to their own choices, and I believe that this is the second friend that she knows who has committed suicide.

I was talking to a group of people recently and the topic of the economy came up. My two older kids have not wanted to pursue college degrees at this time. Although I've had conversations with them about this choice and the ramification it can mean for them down the road, there is the other part that is also reluctant to have them straddled with enormous student debt that they may or may not be able to repay, especially if this economy fails to improve.

When young men and women with very little job experience are having to compete with older workers with more experience for the few minimum wage jobs, something is seriously wrong.

She is coming home for  few days next week. I will be glad to have her home and I will hug her for a very long time. Undoubtedly being home will bring back a rush of memories for the friends she has lost. We were excited to have her home & the plans had been made a couple of weeks before the death of these two friends occurred.

Now it will be a healing visit. I hope that it will be enough.

A different time . . .

One of the reasons that I believe that my daughter has had a hard time in life is because of the tremendous losses she has faced since her junior year in high school.

About eight of her friends over the years has died.

In the past month, two of her friends have been murdered. By all appearances, both young men were not doing anything illegal. One was in his home when he was shot & killed by an acquaintance, the other was in the wrong place at the wrong time, shot & killed in Oakland.

Both of these young men were African American.

It brings to light for me when people discuss the pathway for our African American boys - prison or death.

We have got to change something in our society.  The violence and apparent disregard for human life is a symptom of a disease called poverty. Until we address that, the killings will continue.

I wanted to add:
@HappyChyck - a lot of points of conversation. We are a middle class white family, but we live in a community that has become more urban over the past 15 or 20 years. My daughter has a wide-range group of friends, some of whom have died because of their own bad decisions (driving drunk). However, three of her friends have been murdered - these past two, like I said, in the space of a month. All three of these friends were young men of color, two Black & one Hispanic.

The reality for me is that my own two sons do not run the same risk of being murdered as their friends of color. The people who chose to murder these three men were also men of color. I believe that because poverty & racism are so inextricably linked in our society that the young men who who chose to use a gun really saw no other path in their lives.

There is a message here . . .

Things aren't getting better in my district as I've written earlier. While many of our teachers complain about increasingly worse working conditions, lack of respect for their professionalism, and a constant threat of pay-cut days (aka furlough days), very few seem to understand that there are more of us than them.

The sense I get is that they expect the president (not just me, but any person in this role) do solve all of the problems and to always fight the battles. A general is only as strong as the soldiers standing behind her.

Guess what, the grasshoppers will continue to win and get the fruits of labor done by the ants.

It cannot be explained any better than this.

it's not only the teachers . . .

I don't understand the adversarial role that too many of the administrators in our district seem to have embraced over the past few years.

As I showed in my last post, evaluations are becoming highly contentious in my district. A big part of this is because administrators (I believe) are being directed to use it as a weapon to "get teachers" as opposed to its intent, which is a tool to help teachers improve their practice.

The former is going to be met with great resistance. Many of our older teachers believe they are being targeted & I believe that this may very well be the case. Most teachers, regardless of age, want to embrace practical guidance that will help them become better in order to best meet the needs of their students. I've yet met a teacher in my district or any other district who went into teaching to damage kids.

Part of the reason teachers get burnt out is because of this constant beating down on them by those above. I don't understand the mentality. School site leaders roles should be one of helping their staff improve as individuals. They should be the ones setting the tone and providing examples of good instructional practice & support. If it were done in this manner, then perhaps our teachers wouldn't fear evaluations & would embrace the concept of using evaluations to help them become better in the classroom.

Instead, we have a battle of wills and the only ones I see losing in this kerfuffle are teachers many of whom are teaching in incredibly tough situations with very little support.