All right, I've been avoiding writing this for awhile but I guess it's about time for a big update. So here goes....
So, I don't know really where to start, so I'll go back to March. I received a Form D in March, which basically says that I need to "improve" on some things and since then, have done everything that my principal requested I do- went to go see a teacher on campus as well as off-campus, meet with the 7-12 Social Studies instructor and debrief with her, etc. Since March, she came in to see me for a cumulative of 20 minutes- five minutes here, ten minutes here, three minutes here, etc. Several times I even requested for her to come in and she did for about five minutes, which was frustrating.
So on April 30th, she comes into my room 5th period on Wednesday, saying that she was "just" told by personnel that she needs to do my formal evaluation meeting by May 1st which was THE NEXT DAY! Then at the meeting, she tells me that although she's seen some improvement, she hasn't been enough (when, during all those times that she's visited????) and that after consulting with other people who have observed me (who are all teachers and therefore should not be part of the evaluative process) I'm just going through my motions because my job is on the line and that I'm not just a good fit. So she's going to decline to rehire me at the end of the year. When I tried to protest saying that I didn't feel that I was being evaluated properly because she had only been in a few minutes, she wouldn't take that into consideration saying that she's looking for very specific things (which I still don't understand how she can evaluate when she's been in for two minutes.... anyway). When I told my department, it hit the fan. One of my dept members came with me the next morning to meet with a GGEA Union rep (I love how they've just adopted me as their little girl in the department- they are so incredibly protective) and then today I was told by the principal that she wants to come in sometime this or next week to observe me "again" formally (although how it can be again when she never formally observed me in the first place is beyond me....). I was also told that someone from the district would be in during the next two weeks to observe me as well (which is nice but also frustrating since those were two weeks of testing where we see our kids every other day).
So fast forward to Thursday when she came to observe me. I was teaching a lesson on lynching and the blues. We started out by talking about music and what kind of music the kids like and it eventually led us to talking about the blues. We t hen watched a video clip from Ken Burns' Jazz DVD about the blues, which had great pictures and some awesome blues music in the background. We then listed ideas on the board why the African Americans might be "blue"- i.e. Jim Crow laws, black codes, having to sharecrop, lynching, etc. We focused on lynching, looked at some stats on lynching and then watched another clip from Jazz about the KKK and lynching. Then we turned to nine documents about lynching and they got into partner groups and analyzed one document each, summarizing it and indicating if it was a step forward for anti-lynching or a step back. After we went over each document as a class, the partner groups took a big index card, wrote their document, the date, the summary and whether it was a step forward or back. We t hen put those kind of on a vertical timeline on the board with the step forwards to the right and the step backs to the left. we discussed the significance of the steps forwards and backs and how lynching went on for quite some time after Reconstruction. Finally, we brought back the music from the beginning of the period and listened to Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit. Their homework was to fill out a metaphor chart, explaining what Billie Holiday was really talking about.
I had the principal come and observe third period. They're a small class, 17 kids, but a pretty good class, certainly 100,000 times better than at the beginning of the year. And let me tell you, we both KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK! They were great, I felt so confident and at ease and when it was over, I was so proud of them and myself. I KNEW that I did a good job so no matter what happened at our meeting on Monday, I was going to know that I did my best and did a great job. She came up to me afterwards and said that she saw improvement and that we'll talk on Monday.
So another fastfoward to Monday. She starts by asking me why I taught that lesson since it wasn't a focus standard (I KNEW she was going to ask me that too and so I had a kick-butt answer prepared). I was very confident during the meeting and very articulate and explained my positions well. she made some odd nit-picky comments that were pretty ridiculous but whatever and she eventually said well, we'll continue to observe you and let you know more in June.
What the heck?
So that's when I said, very politely, of course, that I needed a more specific timeline. Especially since the job market in California for teaching is so up in the air right now, it's not fair for me to be in limbo for all that time and so I need to know sooner rather than later what the situation will be. I'm really proud for sticking up for myself (thanks department!) and although she kind of danced around an answer, I'm going to stay on her case until she let's me know. June, what the heck does that mean anyway? June is in two weeks. Beginning of June, end of June, what? But whatever happens, I know that I've done my best, my students are doing great and constantly improving and if she's dumb enough to not hire me back next year, then I don't even want to be there.
So that's the situation. Full stop.
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