I had smaller classes, more resources, all the money I could hope for. I made grand requests, small suppositions, informative inputs here and there. I badgered team leaders frequently for assistance, for support, for teachers who would babysit students who did not have permission slips to go on field trips.
I was a hard worker, and I was frustrated still. The same politics, the same nattering, gossip, conflicts between parents, students, staff was prevalent. I was also disturbed to find that students and staff had a more connected relationship, that they would go to parties together, and in some instances teachers would get a little tipsy, but the students could put all of that aside.
I enjoyed working in one charter school, where the overworked administrative staff let me take students on field trips all around the city. The second semester, though, turned into the Kafkasesque nightmare that I thought I would never have to deal with again. A charter school is supposed to be free of all the nonsense, the folly, the confusing changes and rude staff where everyone is running around trying to get somewhere, yet never being able to go anywhere. The bell schedule changed three times, I witnessed the same students switched three times into different classes in one week. The counselor was an unkempt, incompetent bully, and the administrative staff refused to do anything about it.
The principal was a new guy trying to climb his way up in the world. Possessed with the armed truth of rugged individualism infused with Catholic schoolboy charm, he thought that he could work his way up in the world, make a better community for himself and others, and make lots of money in this befuddled, hum-drum world.
The executive director was one of the most overwhelmed men I had ever met. The school where I was assigned was crammed with projects and initiatives. He was the chief lobbiest for the school as well. When he wasn't overseeing a growing number of projects, meeting with heads of state, placating a nasty school board of trustees who were looking for avenue to preen for the local media. Week after week, I would listen to the principal regale us with the horror stories of what the executive director was endearing from the school board. The whole thing was very distressing to me. A man who possessed such a great degree of wealth, and a growing number of connections with the city and the local community, and they treated him like a harried waiter who should have been doing more, yet could not do enough.
If anyone wanted to get an idea of the poverty of "rising to the top", the executive director of the charter school where I worked was the poster boy. No matter how high a man may rise in the company, there are more noses to brown, more hinds to lick, the pressure never ends. The powers that be right above you are never satisfied. They will demand more action, more attention to detail, more arbitrary measures of success. Who wants to be in this rat race of leaping from one hierarchy to the next? What an empty race, the rat race can become, and this executive, a congenial man when he was talking about education policy, became a heap of frustration, fast-paced phone calls, and irate supervisors yelling at him on the phone. And he was putting his own money into the school!
When I planned a visit to the local public institution with which the charter school was allied, I got a lot of flak from the principal. He thought I was up to no good, snooping around in an institution with which the school had a shaky relationship at best. I was growing increasingly frustrated with a program that was intent on keeping up appearances rather than improving the well-being of the student body.
Slowly but cynically, I developed a sense that the whole school was more about making money, raising property values, improving the standing of the community as opposed to essentially providing a fit and worthy alternative to the local public schools, which were awfully in their own distaste. Yes, I am all for choice, but not at the expense of the best intentions and well being of the students. Since the school was heavily engaged in running a PR campaign at the same time as corralling students off the street, the conflict of interests became even more glaring.
I got by as best as I could with the resources available to me, which was actually a lot more than most schools offer. Unlike in other schools, I got everything that I wanted. But I was not happy. I was still stressed out from day to day. The school pressed hard against every teacher to get every student's grades up. There were so many D's and F's at the end of the first semester, that upper-level staff feared that the school was going to lose out on some major funding from potential donors.
So, the pressure was on -- get those students to pass, whatever it took. Let students make up assignments which they has skipped in the previous months. Give students extra credit. This whole arrangement began to stink to me. Part of education is letting students fail. Now the stress was on, and on the teacher. Was I working in a school, or was I working in a day-care center? At the end of the first semester, the principal even suggested that seniors should be able to pass with 57 percent. That's failing, but the school wanted to give the impression that their students were excelling.
The second semester was the last straw for me. Within two weeks, the school changed the bell schedule three times. We have student convocations once a week. The school had been operating according to a rotating block. Three classes a day, two hours each, with a conference period every other day for each teacher. The counselor was a rude incompetent, one who would rotate student enrollment half-hazardly. Of course, I was struggling with my own issues. I was still a frustrated wreck, trying to make the most of a tough situation, a dysfunctional school barely getting through its first year with all four classes.
But I could not take it anymore. I did not feel like I was connected to this school. I had busted my butt to get those kids to pass, and many of them did, though some barely passed my class with a
"D-". I was overwhelmed and confused. I had do so much good, but it did not feel worth it. The confusion, the dysfunction, and the disappoint all got to me. In a sudden huff, I packed up all my personal belongings, left the keys at the door with a terse, curt note of resignation, and walked off the campus.
I regret taking so sudden a departure. I still had so much to learn about myself. I realized, though, that perhaps even a charter school was not the answer. The best school that I had ever worked in-- students were extremely respectful, the facilities were state of the art, the parents were very supportive -- but I was still so undone by the demands on the instructor and the unresponsive administrators who spent more time kissing up to unconnected bureaucrats and local leaders.
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