STOP BEATING UP TEACHERS!

America has enough teachers! They are not returning to the classroom due to the culture of disrespect.

It’s hard to believe I’ve been out of teaching five years. After being bullied by admin, faculty and parents, I waved the white flag once and for all April 25, 2017. My 46 year career came to an abrupt end due to a spineless administrator, irascible department personnel and a handful rancorous parents. Quite simply, I was incredibly tired of the constant “beat up” I took almost everyday.

For months I have written and spoken about the crisis of the shortage of teachers. Well it’s here and it looks like this: paraprofessionals and daily substitutes taking over classrooms without teachers; retired teachers re-entering the workforce; and well-meaning vets and retired policemen and women entering the classrooms of America without any training. Let me be clear: America has enough teachers! Truth: they just don’t want to teach in the caustic environment created by spineless administrators, irascible faculty and rancorous parents. And then there are the education myths which keep on perpetuating falsehoods about teaching.

Once again, I heard the ignorant media this week spout the myth that teachers have the summer off and therefore are not eligible for an increase of pay. Here are three myths addressed by teachthought.com:

Myth #1: “But you get your summers off!”

Though contracted time may seem to be on par with other professions, most teachers will tell you that completing required work within their contracted time, and doing it well, is close to impossible. This results in teachers coming in earlier, or staying later, and taking work home. A study looking at unpaid overtime in 2014 found that teachers were more likely to work more unpaid overtime than any other professionals. Teaching has become more demanding in recent years. While some teachers might have a scheduled ‘prep’ time, it is highly unlikely that the ‘prep’ time will actually be used for preparing lessons.

Instead, grading and planning are responsibilities that are often reserved for evenings and weekends, so that the amount of overtime is inching upwards– up by 31%, as compared to the unpaid overtime hours that teachers worked in 2010. In fact, it is estimated that, during the school year, teachers work an average of 53 hours per week. While this is not true of all teachers, those for whom this is true are putting in an extra 39 hours every three weeks. For every 40 weeks of a school year, they are putting in an extra 13 forty-hour weeks. For these teachers, that unpaid summer ‘vacation’ isn’t a vacation at all; it’s comp time.

Myth #2: “You don’t work a full day; you get to leave by 3pm!”

Even though the average school day for students is 6.64 hours, for most teachers, the contracted school day approximates that of a typical 40 hour jobs. In other words, an eight hour 9 to 5 schedule is simply moved back by two hours. For example, my local school district’s contracted day for teachers is from 7:15 to 3:15, with many teachers staying later to assist students who need after school help, or who need additional time to make up work.

When teachers aren’t actually teaching, the school day is spent in a harried pace of activity consisting of non-existent bathroom breaks, 20 minute lunch breaks, playground or bus duty, instant-communication-inspired parent contacts, and excessive amounts of data collection and analyses that are required by the state for the purposes of accountability.

Myth #3: “Yes, but just about anyone can teach!”

Teaching is an incredibly demanding job. It’s fulfilling, but demanding. For example, Ryan Fuller, an aerospace engineer-turned-teacher, described teaching as harder than his job designing a NASA spacecraft. According to Fuller, “No one can fully understand how difficult teaching in America’s highest-need communities is until he or she personally experiences it. When I solved engineering problems, I had to use my brain. When I solve teaching problems, I use my entire being—everything I have.” Bob Shepherd, a former publishing executive, said something similar about his return to teaching: “Everything I did before was a vacation by comparison.”

Additionally, for teachers in high poverty schools, the compassion fatigue that accompanies teaching can be overwhelming. Karla, a first grade teacher, and a 14-year veteran, notices “children are coming with more trauma than ever before, and the pressure to meet standards has increased.” For Karla, and so many other teachers, the emotional exhaustion that has accompanied teaching in a high-poverty school has taken its toll. “We had a speaker come discuss the effects of trauma on the brain. Everyone I talked to saw the effects in our own lives, not to mention our students. At one point, she said how it takes a special teacher to be able to teach traumatized students, and my immediate thought was, ‘I can’t be that teacher anymore.’”

Anyone who thinks that teaching is an easy job has never taught before.

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In all the articles I read about the myth of “summers off” no one addressed the reality of teacher pay. I was on a 180 day contract which began in mid-August and ended in early June. The misnomer of “summers off” comes from the fact teacher salaries are spread out over a 12 month period but actual pay is for 9.5 months. So getting “paid” in the summer only reflects the balance of salary owed for the 180 day contract.

More myths from my point of view:

Myth #4: Most teachers belong to the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

According to The74, Actually only one in four U.S. teachers belong to a union. To be sure, 75% of America’s teachers are NOT unionized. When union heads, like Randi Weingarten, stand behind race-based hiring policies in Minneapolis, she does not represent the views of the majority of America’s teachers.

Myth #5: Teachers join unions so their leftest and socialistic views may be supported on an education platform.

Truth in transparency: I was a union member (although in both Colorado and Nebraska membership is to an association with a connection to the NEA) for most of my 46 year teaching career. I am a conservative Christian educator with no leanings for the liberal agenda in education. When I joined associations in both Nebraska and Colorado, it was to seek representation when the spineless, irascible and rancorous openly attacked my integrity.

Both states’ associations gave me great advice each time and truly cared about me as an educator. I got to know my representatives by first name and they always either took my call or returned my call within hours. Associations are the only buffer zone between teachers and the misconduct of admin, faculty, and parents. That in itself speaks to why teachers are leaving the field in greater numbers than ever before. Yes, Covid did contribute to an exodus. But teachers were leaving long before the disease ever invaded our country.

Here are just some of the ways I was “beat up”:

• Principal stated to her admin team she wanted me gone, for no reason. I was privy to this information from a another administrator who refused to be a part of the scheme. At the time, I was tenured with one of the top programs in the state.

• What does adult bullying look like? Mean-spirited emails, unfounded accusations, and a culture of back-stabbing. Tenured teachers are not fired due to litigation issues. Instead they are bullied to leave. This is especially true for white, older female teachers. My basis for this statement? I met one evening with several older, white women who had been bullied to leave their schools. We were called to the meeting by the district education association who had concerns about a pattern of administrator abuse. Most at the meeting, including myself, left their positions due to the stress of fighting for their jobs.

• I was tenured, with a state-wide reputation for building a credible program and yet I was told I could not return to my job. Administrators actually do go after tenured teachers with integrity, without cause. This from my book “Rescue the Teacher, Save the Child!”

Exile Isle: The room, dimly lit, appeared quite small for the assigned meeting place. A round table, placed in the center of this cramped space, accommodated eight chairs. Sleet pummeled the window as we waited for more to join us. It appeared the inclement weather affected the turn out. Small snippets of conversation could be heard. Two women, visiting quietly about their experiences, while three others began introductions. I waited nervously, wondering what impact this meeting might have on my life. Women, demoted and demoralized as teachers, gathered to share their story. Most transferred out of the district. Two bowed to the fate of involuntary retirement. The teachers’ union representative opened the meeting and asked the assembled women to introduce themselves and share their experiences. As each teacher spoke, the accounts became more grueling in context and breadth.

All of us, mostly over the age of 40, experienced bullying behavior from our administrators. The effort exerted by those admin teams forced all of us into leaving our positions. In most situations, the offending administrator was male. How could these career professional women receive evaluations riddled with false accusations, experience harassment and derogatory comments? How could our colleagues and community not demand justice? How could years of evaluations with the highest scores of 4 altered in the last year of their employment to 1’s and 2’s? Modus Operandi (MO): a particular way or method of doing something, especially one that is characteristic or well-established. Make no mistake. An unambiguous MO intertwined itself throughout all of the narratives. Administrators set forth to rid themselves of older teachers in a very unsettling procedure.

    Lacy, a teacher forced to retire, stopped the conversation cold with two words: Exile Isle. She received the privileged information from teachers working towards their admin certification. The mentoring principal shared this term at their inservice. A unison gasp emitted with incredulous glances at the sound of those words. A cacophony of questions came from everyone in the room. What was this? How could it exist? How was this even possible?

Exile Isle is a term used to compel teachers into resigning or retiring, thus avoiding the firing process. When teachers quit of their own volition, no recourse exists to litigate damages against the district. My ordeal substantiated the implementation of Exile Isle as the end game designed for me. Tenure, with excellent evaluations, should have insured my sustainability in my position. The Exile Isle procedure appeared multifaceted and scripted by administrators:

• Early in the fall term, veiled verbal and emailed accusations cast a shadow on integrity.

• The administrator sided with any complaining parents, making no efforts to fact find.

• Emails with vague agendas periodically requested meetings with an administrator. Meetings always scheduled in the middle of the day so returning to classes, after receiving a verbal rough up, presented its usual challenges.

• Three to four confrontational meetings per semester, behind closed doors without witnesses, proved debilitating.

• Answers to questions raised, regarding supposed classroom scenarios, never garnered even a nod of affirmation from the administrator.

• Each additional meeting, administrators became more direct with printed out, unfounded accusations. The questions from previous meetings, already asked and answered, reappeared.

• The tone of the meetings began to take on a demeaning nature by midyear. “This meeting is for you to listen and for me to talk” stated by one administrator.

• No rational answer would satisfy the administrator’s growing distrust.

• At the EOY (End of the Year) evaluation, teachers could return but in a lesser position. This MO prevailed throughout the evening of discussions.

On my daily drive to school, instead of  experiencing the incredible beauty of the area, I found myself praying for strength and wisdom. No supplication could alleviate the knot in my stomach wondering if today would produce one of those “gotcha” meetings. The target painted on my back as the admin team went out of their way to make my life miserable. Exile Isle was not a familiar term at the time. Reexamining my final year, my banishment to Exile Isle began in the fall of 2016, which ultimately resulted being kicked off the island permanently in the spring of 2017.

And then this from thedenverchannel.com: A proposed ballot measure that would have put nearly $1 billion a year in income tax revenue toward Colorado public K-12 teachers and schools will not go to voters in November after organizers failed to gather enough signatures to make the ballot.

Organizers with the Great Schools Thriving Communities Coalition – comprised of the Colorado School Finance Project and Great Education Colorado – announced Monday they would not be submitting signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office for Initiative 63 after falling short of the 125,000 that were needed for the measure to be approved for November’s election.

How did I find out about this? On the app Next Door, a neighbor posted: I …wanted to share the fantastic news that Initiative 63 failed to garner enough signatures. We must stay vigilant though as there are those out there who will stop at nothing to take more and more of your money. My take? We are now celebrating underpaid teachers and being vigilant so teachers are not compensated for their work. And we have the audacity to ask why American education is no longer competitive in the world?!

And finally this from thedenvernewschannel.com: Colorado has one of the lowest average teacher salaries in the country, and the state legislature rarely fully funds K-12 education.

You pay for what you get. It’s that simple. When you lose teachers, schools’ ratings plummet only to be followed by a lowering of property evaluations. If you are the purveyor of cheap shots against our teachers, stop! If you are a parent, stop before you hit send on a hateful email. If you are a teacher, we need you! Stay the course if you can. Support your colleagues, even the unlikeable ones! If you are an administrator, when was the last time you said to a teacher “How can I make your job easier?” Do not rule from a bully pulpit. Stop contributing to the negative forces found in every school. If you are in government, stop bemoaning teacher salary increases. If you are retired with no children in school, stop sitting idly by as our nation loses one of its richest resources: teachers.

RESCUE THE TEACHER, SAVE THE CHILD!  Please purchase yours today!  It won the 2020 Topshelf non-fiction book award. It’s a great gift for a parent, teacher or administrator especially at the start of a new school year.

Here is a better idea: contact me and I will help any school board or school district implement the Golden Rule Project. Contact me by clicking on the links provided.