Duval county treats teachers like easily replaceable cogs, the story behind why I was surplused (rough draft)

Let me paint the picture for you. It was the 4:00 in the afternoon on the Thursday before teachers were supposed to report back to school. This was just three days after I had sent my principal a list of ideas to improve the inclusion program at my school, we had started it last year and there were numerous issues with how we did things. I had met with him just six days before for an hour and a half and he had asked me to do so. However now I was enjoying one of my last days off and I was heading into the movies when my phone rang. Hello I answered. The voice in a matter-of-fact fashion said, this is so and so from the district, you have been surplused. On Monday you are to report to such and such school.

At first I thought it was a joke, who is this, I asked but after a few minutes it became apparent it wasn’t. The person I was talking to offered me no explanation and no sympathy either. They told me to get in touch with Tony Belamy the director of Turn-Around schools if I had any questions but wouldn’t give me his number. E-mail him they said.
I did and much to his credit he agreed to meet with me the next day.

I was told I was being surplused because my data was bad, that kids in my classes had not improved enough. Initially I was shocked and my core was rocked to its foundation. Here I had been operating under the apparently mistaken foundation that I was a pretty good teacher. My method of going slow, drilling and redriling, and reteaching if necessary had seemed to me at least been working. The district, as they were transferring from the school I had been at for five years and which was also the school I attended while in high school, was now telling me different. I was upset, disappointed and dismayed but I also knew something was up. Several other teachers, all veterans, all leaders, all out-spoken about the direction the school was heading in had been surplused for the same in my opinion dubious reason but they had been told weeks before. Then I started asking questions and it became apparent something was rotten in Denmark, make that in DCPS.

What’s the data I asked and all they could say was some data on Pearson.
Okay I thought shaking my head. I had seen this before. The district is run in a haphazard fashion and the powers that be think teachers are replaceable cogs. They don’t remember how just a few years ago we were recruiting in Canada and India and begging people from the business world to give teaching a chance. If they don’t like you or they perceive that you are a threat to them or heck if they have a neighbor who has a nephew that thinks they might like to try teaching they can make things very difficult for you. I recently had been outspoken about a few personnel moves and had asked the administration if they were more interested in rewarding their friends or doing what’s best for the kids and I had done so just two days prior to me being let go.

I imagine they thought I would just take their answer put my head between my legs and slink to the next school grateful I had a job. The thing is life should be about more than that and education should be about what’s doing what’s best for the kids even if that means enduring a loud mouth that asks questions and has opinions. I know, despite the initial blow to my ego, I am a pretty good teacher and I thought if they are going to surplus me they had better have a good reason, not because some random data on a program that the district spent millions on that most teachers only use kicking and screaming. I was getting nowhere with Mr. Belamy, he was sticking with his decision, so after the meeting I filed grievance with the union and waited two months for them to show me my supposed “bad data”.

This is what I found out.

My data (and I guess my year, maybe my career) was based on how 27 kids did. These kids were not in the science 9-12, health 9-12 or research classes that I taught alone. These kids were dispersed through four classes I “co taught”. Though to say co-taught is a bit of a stretch.

Let’s talk briefly about my co-teach classes. First I was co-teaching both biology and earth space science. I don’t know how it is at other schools but other than me, teachers were assigned to teach biology or earth space not both. I co-taught with four different teachers and the only training I received was a six hour class a week before school began, to which none of my co-teachers showed up, the year before. At the training, put on by six district people (two to talk, four others to sit around bored working on their nails). They showed a few clips about co-teaching and in all of them the co-teachers were together all day long, not just for ninety minutes every other day like I was expected to do and in one of the clips the co-teacher said, “Our first couple years were rough but now we have a routine down”. These teachers who were together all day long needed years to get it right but Duval County expected us to hit the ground running and expected me to be successful with multiple teachers in multiple subjects with just a six-hour training. That’s the Duval County way, to send out impossible to implement edicts and then blame the teachers when they don’t hit some arbitrary number on a spreadsheet. The district puts teachers (and students) in impossible situations and then wonders why they don’t do very well.

Oh and why was I being switched to co-teaching, moving from my special education science classes to regular ones? Well in Duval County they are in the process of moving most of the counties special education students into regular education classes whether they are capable or not. The year before I wrote a memo suggesting a few of my student could benefit from regular education classes but what I thought was understood was that the vast majority of my kids were right where they should be. The county (and not because of my memo, which I am sure was filed in the trash) instead has decided to transition all the special ed kids into regular ed classrooms and this despite the fact many are not capable and that the environment is unsuitable for them. I was sent to the regular education classes to help the special education students be successful. So it wasn’t just 27 kids that determined my fate it was 27 special education kids.

In the regular education classes I didn’t plan or introduce instruction. I didn’t come up with assignments or write test questions. Heck more often than not I found out what was going on that day at the same time the kids did. I felt like I was a high priced para professional and when I gave suggestions to improve the situation they were ignored. I was told meet with the regular education teachers to plan but not given the time to do so, plus remember I had three of my own classes covering three different subjects to prepare for as well and furthermore I had thirty kids on my IEP caseload too.

So my career boiled down to how twenty-seven special ed kids spread over four different classes, several of whom had no business being there, in two different subjects that I had never taught before? And once again, I was not doing the teaching. I just circulated the rooms and helped where I could.

How did the 27 kids do? Well that’s a good question. I learned they were supposed to be evaluated by the MAP pre-test and EOC post-test. Of the 27, – 7 students did not take either test, 4 took only the pre-test, 7 took only the post-test, 9 took both. Of the 27 only 9 took both. Any test not taken was assigned a value of zero. Kids drop out, I got a zero, kids miss the days they were given I got a zero. Kids in classes they shouldn’t be in I got a zero.

People wonder why teachers are against merit pay based just on tests. Here in Florida the test is the FCAT and that measures several years of growth not just what was taught by the teacher who it holds responsible. Furthermore, here in Jacksonville that quite often means the children are far behind because we socially promote children regardless of whether they have the skills to succeed or not. Deciding an individual’s worth based on one test in just wrong especially when there are so many factors that they have no control of.

So at the end of the day my fate was determined by how nine special education kids in classes for all intensive purposes I did not teach did. How did they do? I don’t know, nobody will tell me.

I have landed on my feet. I am at a new school working with a great staff and with great kids. Here though I m like sprinkles on ice cream. They didn’t need me while at my other school my position months later has gone unfilled and my kids have not gotten the services they need. I also felt like I had a lot of unfinished business at my old school. I so wanted to be there to help with the turn around. Furthermore last year the county spent about two thousand dollars to CAR-PD (a reading program) train me, training I will never use at my new school.

Duval County has issues; heck the state and education in general do too. They are not going to be solved unless we get serious and things are definitely not going to get better as long as the powers-that-be treated teachers like easily replaceable cogs. I am not a cog.