Teachers treated like second class citizens in Duval

Teachers treated like second class citizens in Duval

Principals hate teachers; an outrageous statement right? To be honest I can’t really imagine any principals actually saying that. But I know for a sad fact that that's how more and more teachers feel after at staff meetings or conferences or one on one interactions with their bosses. Many principals feel its okay to talk to teachers in a fashion that teachers wouldn't dream of talking to their students, though if they did and rightfully so they would get in trouble.

Principal have also taken to monitoring their teacher’s social networking sites, telling teachers that they can’t have students on their pages and taking umbrage to some staff’s status updates. I personally have better things to do than look at my student’s pages, and I would hope people entrusted to run schools would as well but that is not always the case.

It's common practice for teachers to start the year strict with their students; that way, they have room to lighten up as the year progresses. It is also not uncommon for a principal, reappointed to an unfamiliar school, to lay ground rules and expectations - but, like teachers shouldn’t, principals shouldn’t come off like bullies, either. There should be no room for that in our schools and it shouldn’t matter if the offender is 13 or 43.
I am not saying bosses can’t be bosses. I am saying the teachers that are most successful are the ones that get the kids to buy into what they are teaching; the ones that get the kids to want to work for them. The teachers that bully and browbeat their kids are usually the ones that are least successful, and so to will be those principals and administrators that act in the same fashion. In education, the message is important, but how you convey the message determines if people are going to hear it or not.

Sadly, this is where we find ourselves in 2012. Principals are told to shake things up, as teachers and principals have both become the scapegoats for the district. On one hand, teachers have gone from valued colleagues to someone who can be browbeaten, intimidated, marginalized and, worse of all, disrespected, while being put in positions where success is hard to achieve.

Then, on the other hand, principals (dozens are reassigned every year), are also put in almost unattainable positions as they are told they can’t discipline, and to move as many kids along as possible. They are told to do so, whether the students are prepared for the next level or not, and since the less than forty percent of students who arrive at the neighborhood high school can read at grade level it would seem to indicate that many are not.
So much about doing both jobs successfully is about fostering positive relationships, and when both groups are put under such impossible pressure and in opposite positions, it’s really a tribute to the fine professionals we have that things aren’t worse.

The chasm between the administration and teachers is widening everyday, and that can't be healthy for the Duval County school system and this latest evaluation tool the cast system is another example of this. Teachers all over the district are walking on eggshells because of it. The Superintendent doesn’t realize the true bosses, both his, principals and the teacher’s, are ultimately the children of the district and we should be doing whatever we can to make sure they are successful, and putting both principals and teachers in impossible positions is doing the opposite of that.

Andrew Carnegie once stated, “you can take my buildings and resources, leave my workers, my greatest asset, and I'll be back on top”. The school district, in contrast, treats many of its teachers and principals as if they are disposable, while at the same time playing them against each other. The sense of camaraderie and teamwork between the two groups is quickly dissipating and the esprit de corps that had both groups believing they were in this together has been replaced by ‘it’s the teacher’s fault’ and ‘if this principal doesn’t crack the whip, we’ll find another one that will’, by the county’s administration and school board.

If we want to have a truly successful school system, it's going to require a partnership between teachers and their administrators. I think teachers are the district’s number one resource and should be treated with dignity and respect. I believe the better teachers are, the better they will be for their students, as well, and I also believe if they are supported - put in positions where success is attainable, and not overwhelmed with task after task – not told to pass so many students along whether they deserve it or not and are backed up when dealing with kids whose main goal is not to learn but to disrupt, then the district will prosper and principals need to be allowed to do those things even if initially it costs their school a few percentage points.

I also think schools need leaders - people that teachers can come to when they need help and someone students can look up. A principal is like a quarterback of a football team, or like the rudder of a ship. Quarterbacks probably get too much credit and too much blame when a team flounders, but they are still the ones who keep the ball moving. A ship may still be able to float without a rudder, but at the same time its sense of direction will be seriously impaired. Many teachers I know avoid their principals and groan when forced to interact because rarely does anything positive come from it.

I wrote above that principals hates teachers, but let me make emphatically clear that nobody I know of says that in so many words, that’s just how teachers all throughout the district feel. That and they are second-class citizens, yoked, easily replaced cogs.

We need to repair the deteriorating relationship between teachers and administrators because of the impossible expectations put upon them and the impossible positions they are put in. The district is fostering contentious relationships that, unless changes are made, the school system will inevitably collapse upon itself and more kids will fall through the cracks or graduate ill prepared for life because of it. Everybody loses.