the truth

honestly, i have been having trouble keeping this blog up to date. when i first decided to start this blog, i thought it would be an interesting place for me to be able to quickly jot down any ideas and thoughts i had from teaching in the dc public schools. sadly, i have been more overwhelmed than i ever envisioned. moving here was not a complete mistake. i am happy to be surrounded by family and old friends, the ocean, and all of the amenities on the east coast.

however, working for a system such as DCPS is a never ending, disaster.

i cannot imagine that they will ever get any better and i feel for some of the people that send their kids here.

i have never seen such horrendous things in a school allowed to go on.

at the school i work at, there is not any enforcement of discipline, no cleaning practices, no accountability for students and even some teachers.
i have also never worked with a more unprofessional group of educators in my life.

too much inaction breeds illiteracy and non-accountability.
so sad.

please don't squeeze the charmin!!

which is kind of hard to do as there has not been toilet paper for at least three mondays since school has started here at this school.

there is one bathroom on the third floor for all female teachers. on certain occasions, even students can be found in there. the floor looks like it has not been swept or washed in decades. it was painted a long time ago and is chipped in many places. the sink does not look like the one that was originally there. the one that is there is much smaller. there is a small locker mirror above the sink. and there is a papertowel dispenser that is missing the handle.

i never feel clean when using this bathroom, and this is not the worst one either.

there is a bathroom that is on the second floor behind where the security guard sits for most of the day. anyone can access this bathroom and you can definitely tell. the floor seems to constantly reek of urine. it is very dark and dingy in there with another towel dispenser with a broken handle.
i feel even dirtier using this one.

but wait...this has not even prepared you for the worst one so far that i have encountered!
this one is on the ground floor. it is a girl's restroom and for some reason, there is an overwhelming stench of urine that oozes out almost causing one to gag while trying to relieve oneself.

seriously...do we not know how to mop?
one look at the dust bunnies in my classroom will tell you we also do not know how to sweep.

i cannot wait to go home at the end of a long day so that i can use a clean toilet and bathroom!!
in all of my past eleven years of experience, i have never had to deal with such horrible bathroom sanitation conditions.
even when i had two bathrooms in my classroom, it was cleaned and restocked every single day.
second graders were using it constantly, but it was cleaner than anything i have encountered in dc at my school.

are you experienced?

well apparently, it doesn't really matter.

when i applied for my teaching license in washington, d.c., i sent in all the necessary paperwork to make my license reciprocal. i did not send in the FBI clearance paperwork as I never have had to do that in my life and the district just did a clearance on me. otherwise i would not have been given a contract to sign, and would not be allowed in my classroom.

the entire packet was sent back to me and my old address in colorado as that is where i was living before moving to dc for this wonderful job.

it took almost four months to get the packet back.

yesterday i arrived home to find a letter stating that i am not highly qualified to teach because i do not yet have my teaching license. the irony of it all is that i am more than highly qualified. i would think eleven years in diverse districts in a state that is much farther along in education reform than dc would enable me to obtain a license. but, like everything else in this district, it is the paperwork.


so my parents of the students i teach will be getting a letter saying i am not highly qualified to teach their students. are you serious?
do i need parents thinking this about me?
after all that i have worked for to get here? all the classes i have taken? all of the classroom time i have done?
seriously...one would think in this day and age we would have a more unified system throughout the country to license professionals. well, that is what we thought we were. but are we treated as such?

what profession continually bashes people who are so unrelenting and commited to each individual person they serve?
you guessed it!!

what a shame for society, our kids, and our teachers...

and to think i wondered why people in the main office were wearing slippers!!

real people...hoping for real results!

i just met with my master educator today regarding the evaluation she had in my classroom last week for a half hour.

it was very fair and not full of reprimands and insults like so many people feel is going to be the outcome. or at least for me, that is not how it was at all.
she begun with asking if i understood the evaluation system, which i said i did. she asked how i felt about it,so i felt comfortable sharing my feelings. i was able to share that i felt that the system seemed much needed in the DC public schools and was very thorough. it also seems that it is something we can all benefit from as we all have something to learn from people who evaluate us. that being said, i asked if she was familiar with my background, and i let her know that i have been teaching for eleven years in colorado. that i am used to working with a broad curriculum and having access to all of these materials.
also, that i am used to utilizing a planning and pacing guide for my teaching.
she nodded and smiled. i also shared with her that my district was sending us all to be certified in linguistic and diverse education to meet our population. but i have never before been in a bilingual school.

she then asked how i felt the lesson was that she saw me teach. i explained a bit of the background. that it was my second week of teaching reading. but the first week, i was out of the classroom for three days with a substitute while i was testing my students in reading. so really, it was my first week really teaching reading with my students. i also mentioned that i am used to having groups. that i teach full group and do both guided and shared lessons. she mentioned that grouping was something she mentioned in the evaluation and that i should make use of the sped teacher and anyone else that is in the room by taking groups. they would not affect my evaluation as she is not evaluating them when she is watching me.

i also freely expressed how many things in my classroom have been being stolen and how i do not have a lock on my classroom door, so i do not feel comfortable bringing my books in with that thought in my mind. i expressed that i have brought this situation to my principal and vice principal and am hoping that something will be done regarding this situation.

she asked if i had a mentor in my building and i told her i did not. the district mentor is not assigned to me and we do not have mentors in our building.
she expressed that although she thinks rhee has some great things she is going to accomplish, that inequities are not being met and we need to address them ourselves.

she also got quite emotional when speaking with me regarding materials that we need for our classroom and that i was doing the best i could for the kids with the materials that i have.
she gave me some suggestions on places to look for more resources and i will definitely look into that!

she also said when she was leaving that she is a native washingtonian and knows alot about the city and all it has to offer and she also enjoys the outdoors and has great suggestions on things if i would like any ideas on things to do!

she did not go over the eval with me but encouraged me to read it and write back to her with clarification regarding what we spoke about.

she said that i am great with technique and scaffolding which is so important and is usually where people seem to need the most help so that was good.
also, that most of the things she commented on could be fixed in a day or two and that my score should be raised by the next time i meet with her in the spring.

i asked about us being evaluated in Group one for IMPACT and she said she thought we were all in group four and she would get back to me on that as well.

i thanked her for sharing everything that she did including her emotions with me. it really made me feel better about what has been going on and the future of my teaching in dcps...onward!!

plants and animals

we have a teacher who only teaches science at our school to every grade as a special. some teachers look at this as an opportunity to get out of teaching science.

she has been at many of our fifth grade planning meetings on wednesdays and has always offered me wonderful advice afterwards. we both seem to be on the same page with regards to our passion for the teaching profession, and our dissatisfaction for DCPS.

she informed me yesterday that i have really high expectations which is great. however, she was saying that she does too, and that her first year in the district, she was constantly frustrated with people who were not doing their jobs, and nothing was getting done. she was basically telling me to realize, even with my expectations, that not much will be done.

i appreciate her advice more than anything else i have gotten from this building thus far.

yes master...

i received word i will be evaluated today.

i am nervous about this and not too thrilled as there are problems with this system.

-i am being evaluated as a regular ed teacher, however i am a bilingual ed teacher. when i brought this up, my principal was not even willing to look into the situation.
(many teachers in our building are aware of this, but rhee has scared everyone shitless that no one wants to say anything for fear of losing their jobs)

-i have only been in dc public schools for less than two months

-we just switched the subjects we are teaching in our roller coaster model last week

- we have been assessing reading levels and i have not been in the classroom much within the past two weeks.

-i do not have all of my children's reading levels so we are not reading in small groups yet.

-the students just started being taught social studies and science since my teammate was not teaching either subject to them

-i have not been evaluated by my principal or vice principal as of yet...

poop on the mouse cord

never in my teaching career have i been so exhausted at the end of the day.

is it because i am running up and down stairs all day? to the auditorium, to the cafeteria, to recess, to a meeting, testing kids, to specials, on and on...

and i feel so helpless. helpless that someone says one thing about disciplining a kid and does another. how is this allowed to occur? what message are we sending these students?

when i am asked to make a judgement call by the Dean of Students if a kid is allowed to play soccer after school.
i say he is not allowed after he has threatened me and run away from the classroom for the second time this year. nevertheless, he is still allowed to play. When i asked the dean , he denied the whole thing. what message does this send to everyone in my class who heard and saw the dean asking me to make the judgment call...

is this why kids are not held accountable? when do they start taking the blame?

mice droppings and one test

so teachers in grades four through eight will be evaluated in a huge system called impact this year. the impact is one which will be felt with many as we are educating students in a school system that is the most broken, if not the worst in the country. the chancellor, who was seen by many on the cover of Time magazine holding a broom in a classroom, appears to want to sweep the whole public school system clean of teachers that she deems inadequate.

talk about not holding the right people responsible. i am all for being held responsible for part of my student's success. however, fifty five percent of my evaluation scores-of which three will be done by my asst. principal, and two will be done by an outside source...a so-called "Master Educator. one of each evaluation from each person will be scheduled one day ahead of time. for the remaining three, we will not be notified.

the score on ONE test...will turn the results in either a direction enabling me to teach again next year for the district, or having me lose my job for not being adequate.
ONE test...which is a grade level assessment, when NONE of my kids that i have in my classroom are at grade level to begin with. three are brand new to the united states and do not even speak a complete sentence in english.

the other clincher is that the results do not even come out until august, which means that many of us will believe we have a position and then depending on the test results, may find ourselves without a job right before school begins.

what the chancellor does not seem to want to acknowledge is the fact that the majority of students in these classrooms across the district are eligible for free lunch. most come from homes where parenting is not well established and education as well as behavior seems to be expected to be taught only in school.
this type of parenting runs rampant in public education.
however, the chancellor really is bringing out her industrial sized broom for this one.

hire amazing teachers with experience, or teachers in teach for america or fellowship programs and then have them gone based on ONE test. what will you be left with. for most of these students, the test is not the most important thing on the table for them. the most important thing is that their home life is disastrous, some do not have breakfast before leaving home, and many do not spend much time at all with their parents. do these children visit the library? do they see their parents curling up with a good book at night?

just take a glance at their language and behavior on the schoolyard one day. what you will see from even first graders will shock you.

this makes me think of a quote heard before..."i care because i teach..."
yes, and i have mice droppings on my desk in the morning as i log in to check my dc gov email in my classroom.

passion

I realized then that it wasn't just me that the whole thing would be affecting, but it would affect whoever was horribly chosen for this predicament. After speaking to many people, no one seems to understand the rationale of how they just recently hired so many teachers over the summer and now want to get rid of many people. Are teachers really that expendable? Are teachers worth anything to society?
Why do teachers continue to do what they do, face the adversity they face, deal with people placing blame on them for every under achieving student and school system, and still desire to teach?

The answer my friends is passion. Pure, passion.

I arrived this morning and checked my mailbox at school. There was my normal attendance folder, a few notices informing me of things happening around our school, and a letter from the chancellor. For some reason I began reading this letter as I ascended the stairs to my classroom. This letter was filled with information stating that there was a large budget problem and that many teachers would be losing their jobs. Notification would be sent out by September 30, 2009. Teachers who then have lost their jobs would be expected to work for another month.

At first, all of my thoughts began racing. I started thinking maybe I should go downstairs to the principals office and ask if my job was safe, and how they would make the determination for who they would lose.

Then, I began thinking about how I had just given up everything...my entire life in Colorado, to come here. To be closer to family, to try out something new and have a support system, to be able to take short weekend excursions, or even travel overseas once again.

eve of a new year

I remember preparing for the first day of school when I was younger. Things were so much different then. After shopping for new white school shirts at Epsteins in Baltimore, my mother would take them out of their plastic packaging and carefully take all of the straight pins out of the shirts that were holding them to their cardboard 8 1/2 by 11 inch frames. She would then wash them and also wash my uniform jumper. I usually got a new one each year and also had an older one from the year previous, which would require letting out the hem a bit to accomodate my growing waistline. Thankfully I wasn't as conscious about my growing waistline back then as I seem to be now.

We also had gone shopping for new school shoes.
Docksiders were the trend, and each year I would have a brand new pair to start the year. Usually they were brown with thick leather laces in the front. When you purchased a new pair, you were also given a plastic "Dockside" bag that I cherished.

The night before school started, my mother would be busy ironing my new school shirts. She would usually buy me at least five new ones so I would have enough to wear for a week. She would also iron my jumper and all of the pleats in it so that it looked just right. My brother had his uniform pants ironed, as well as his shirts too. She would then bring all of the ironed clothes upstairs from the ironing board set up in the basement to the second floor in our house. Mom would hang the uniform jumper and one shirt on my door handle to my bedroom, and would put the rest of the shirts in my large walk-in closet with a window, so that they would be ready for the rest of the week.

I would already have placed my school supplies that we had bought at various stores inside of my brand new backpack. My mother would allow us to pick out special pencils with cool designs on them, and special folders too. I loved shopping for new school supplies. Every year I got a new pencil box. They were made out of cardboard at the time and usually had a school bus theme on them, even though I didn't take the bus. As I got older, the school box became a pencil case, and paste became liquid glue.

As she was placing my freshly ironed clothes on my door handle, I would take out my school socks. They were long and we were required to pull them all the way up to the bottom of our knees.
The last thing I would do would take out my new Docksides and leave them out by the door, ready for the first day of school!

As a teacher, I am sitting here contemplating different things as the first day of school is coming for another round of fifth graders. I am thinking of how I have arrived here in DC. The long road to my employment with the DC Public Schools. All of the hoops I have had to go through in order to secure employment here. Some of which are still not completed. I am still waiting for my DC teaching license to arrive. I also have not been able to sign up for benefits yet as the system is overloaded with new hires. Shouldn't anyone have been able to forsee this and propose a solution?

This past week has been filled with alot of action. Luckily, I have been very relaxed in regard to most of what has been going on.We have had meetings galore, as the start of a new school year always brings new professional development opportunities.
We have been trained in new expectations for teachers, what one of my new teammates has decided to rename her binder as "Teaching for Dummies."
Apparently the district has not ever told teachers that it has expectations for them, or for behavior in their classrooms.

We will also be evaluated this year five times. Twice by our Principal and three times by someone in the district. Most of these will be conducted without prior notice.

Despite all of these setbacks, I am here for my class and am very excited for the promise of a new year. I, like most of my kids, do not have new shoes for this school year. I also do not have a new lunchbox, unlike how I used to get a new one every year. However, each year still opens with excitement...and wonder...