LJ Idol Season 11: The Catbird's Seat
I got the offer for the job two days after I interviewed for the position. It probably helped that my friend from high school was working there and put a good word in for me. For someone with a Master's degree, it wasn't an ideal position, assistant teacher with low pay. But I was interviewing at the end of April for a position that was only until the end of the school year. The director swore with my credentials, once June came around, she'd put me into a teacher position for July (it was an 11 month school). All I had to do was finish out the year and I'd have a better pay check and I needed the job. I signed the contract and started in May.
...
June came around. It had been an interesting month working in a 3rd-5th grade combination special education classroom. I started there with no desk or chair or any supplies. My first day, my new coworker came in with a catalog and told me to choose things to order like pen holders, organizers, whatever office supplies I thought I'd need. My friend who helped get me the job went with me to Ikea to buy a desk and a chair and we built it together. A day later, one of my students dropped a holepuncher on my new desk and made a hole through the desk. I used that desk despite the hole for years. My students overall were pretty awesome....except for the one who threw a tantrum and tore apart his workbooks when I asked him to keep working. And the 3rd grader who growled at me, plotted my death by pointing pencils at me like it was a gun. The classroom teacher, while lovely, had no concept of classroom management. She would tell me however, "you know, you're really good at your job. When I retire in 5 years, you should take over for me."
Overall, I felt confident when I walked into that meeting with the director. Why would anyone go back on their word, I wondered especially when I've been doing a good job. How naive, I was.
I sat there and nodded as she explained while she was going to give me a raise, my friend from high school who had been there for years would be promoted, funnily enough to take over for the classroom teacher who I was currently working with (she was being moved to be the reading specialist), and I would be moved to be her assistant. It wasn't like I didn't understand, she had been there for years and she deserved the promotion. Besides, we would make for an awesome team. Next year, Hillary, she promised me. I signed the contract because I needed the job and where else was I going?
...
We did make for an awesome team, her and I. Our kids made so much growth and we had so much fun together both working together and outside of school hanging out. I was sure I was proving myself even if slowly i began realizing the dark side of my work place. The lies, taking in students who did not belong in the school simply for the money that the state would pay, the administration who played favorites and used others as scapegoats. My friend tried to shield me as best as she could but I learned quickly that I was a scapegoat. In a small school, rumors amongst staff fly quickly. I'd hear about how I'd be blamed for this student's behavior or that student's actions. I heard that I was mean, I was this, I was that. If you can name it, I heard it about myself.
Needless to say come June, no matter what I did to prove myself, to show my students' progress and share the good moments, they told me I needed another year at my position. Meanwhile, new people who were hired on after I was who I knew would not last were promoted. I seethed silently but signed the contract. Where was I going? I needed a job and no matter how hard I searched, I had no luck with getting a new job. I felt cursed.
....
I was right. The two people promoted to the teacher positions quit within two months. They couldn't handle it, they said. I smirked in secret but kept a solemn face at their going away parties. It wouldn't behoove me to brag that I was right even if I wanted to shout it from the rooftop.
In April of that school year, my friend decided to quit. She had enough and she was going to California to chase her real dream of being an animator. I encouraged her to chase her dream, because who was I to stop my friend, even if I wanted her selfishly to stay with me. On the flip side of that, I figured this was the moment I'd finally get promoted. I mean who better to take over my own class than me?
That wasn't the case. The assistant director sat there and told me I just hadn't completely proven myself even after two years. This was after he watched a 4th grade girl threaten to throw a chair at me while I stayed calm and documented her behavior as I was taught to do by the school. I followed the exact protocol as we had in a training not too long before. I was shaking on the inside but I couldn't let it show. I heard later on that I was "triggering" her by following protocol and documenting her actions and I didn't do my job correctly. Never mind that she never threw the chair at me and I talked her down and I sat with her as she cried, calming her telling her she was going to be okay. Never mind that she had a documented emotional disability and none of us were ever given appropriate training for working with students with emotional disabilities (after all, we prided ourselves on being a school for children with learning disabilities). Never mind that no one stepped in to help me in the situation. It was inferred that I just was awful at my job. They were going to hire me a sub. The sub lasted for three weeks before she ran for her life. Good riddance. The rest of that year, other staff members helped to run my class while I kept on doing my job.
One day, I called out. My glasses were broken over the weekend; a child who I worked with as a behavioral therapist broke my glasses in half and there was no way I could drive to work. The next day, new glasses and all, I walked in and my coworker pulled me aside. "Hillary, I'm sorry for all of the shit I've said or talked about you over the years."
"What do you mean?" I knew she was talking about me behind my back; she was extremely two-faced but I wanted to hear what she had to say.
"Everyone says you're just mean and you don't do your job and I believed it. But I was you yesterday in the class, and the kids tore apart the classroom and no one provided me any support. You're doing the best you can and no one seems to see it."
"I know. Thank you for acknowledging this."
That June came around, I was paired with a different teacher. A 6th grader teacher. The teacher pulled me aside and told me, "I know what you want and I see your skills and ability despite what they say about you. Stick with me this year, do what I say, and I promise you'll have the teaching job."
...
That year, I worked my ass off. Not that I hadn't before but being paired with the administration's favorite teacher, I knew she had the power to make my year great or miserable. For the most part, we got along super well to the shock of most people who didn't like her either (she was seen as a suck-up and as someone who was a stickler for the rules). While we still had behavioral concerns in the class like my 3rd grader who plotted my death with pencils was now my 6th grader who still plotted my death but this time verbally. There was also a student who almost bashed my head in when I accidentally let the microwave get to zero and it made the beeping noise (he was extremely sensitive to sound and I got distracted grading papers that I forgot to keep an eye on the timer). But this time, I had someone who not just had my back but someone who actually had power to sway the directors.
It worked too. Not that I didn't hear the talk behind my back from my coworkers: I was mean, a bully, I wanted my own way, I talked about people, I didn't stay in my lane, whatever that could be said about me was said. None of that stopped. But that June came around and I was told potentially in September I would have a classroom of my own depending on the enrollment, I just needed to survive a summer in high school and she would let me know. I held on to hope.
That July, I was told come September I would have my own classroom as a 3rd-5th grade teacher.
....
Everyone was sure I was going to fail and that I was going to run when I got my own classroom. Other people did. But other people weren't me.
I wonder if bets were placed on me and how many people lost?
I started that year similarly to that first day of work years ago. My classroom was being painted and I had to teach in the conference room around a table for a week with no access to materials. My first day, my new third grader took off his shoe and put it to my new assistant's face and told her to, "Sniff!" We looked at each other in horror and I think we both wanted to run in that moment. We didn't.
That year was rough. We had by February that year three students with emotional disabilities who were insistent on either cursing us out or tearing apart the room or a daily basis. The school paid for a food behavior program in which they could earn a meal of their choice from outside each day if they could get through the day before without cursing (my assistant and I spent a lot of time running to McDonalds and Baskin Robbins). There were days where both of us at the end of the day wanted to throw in the towel. But we didn't. Despite it all, our kids made progress. My third grader who at the beginning of the year who removed his shoe so kindly for my assistant to sniff, who barely knew his alphabet, had already improved to reading on a 1st grade level in just a few months. Two of my kids who came to us with behavior plans, never had to have their behavior plans used and they were the leaders of my class that year. Even my kids with emotional disabilities, including my tiny little second grader who spent more time than not cursing everyone out, was learning to read. Both my assistant and I had flawless observations and our students were growing and thriving.
Throughout my years both as an assistant and as a teacher, the rumors and misconceptions about me never did stop. At one staff meeting that I had missed, I was apparently commended for being the only person with a perfect observation. I was also told that someone called out, "that's probably because she puts movies on all day and never teaches but just makes sure her room is perfect." The common theme was I was loud and mean and never taught until anyone actually spent time in my room and would then come to me and apologize. I could be rich for everytime someone told me they were sorry about believing the misconceptions about me after actually seeing me working. Even the assistant director who was now director apologized at one point for not getting to know me better and going with the misconceptions spread. Despite the rumors, despite the setbacks (like the year where my assistant teacher was caught sleeping with a 16 year old student, she got fired, and I ended up being the only person in my room for 3 months while also facing being subpoenaed if there was a court trial - there wasn't), I continued to get perfect observations for my teaching and classroom management. I'm sure that pissed people off to no end that I didn't run, that I didn't fail. On the plus side, I did hear someone say that our directors were wrong those years I didn't get the promotion and that I should have had the job earlier than I did. My last year as a teacher there, I even ended up getting the largest classroom in the building with the best view after spending years in a classroom with no view. I'm sure people claimed that was unfair but I also got a student that year in a wheelchair and that was the most navigatable classroom for his chair. Nonetheless, that didn't stop the whispers that I didn't deserve to have the classroom or to be where I was.
...
June came around again. It was the end of my 7th year there but this time I was done. I finally at this point not just had my provisional teaching certificate but my Master's in special education and actual teaching certificate. Despite my degree and teaching certificate, there was to be no salary adjustment, just the same pay to keep surviving in a toxic environment. But unlike the previous years where I had no options and signed my contract resentfully, I had an offer from another school closer to home, an interview with another school, and a screening with the public school system....all with better benefits, better pay, and out of a toxic environment.
That day when I walked in for my contract meeting, my director informed me that there would be no raise but oh and now we'd have to be at work even earlier and those breaks the staff takes to leave work to get lunch by walking to 7-11 next door, the company is frowning on that. He pushed the contract forward to me to sign because why would he expect me not to sign. I've signed all those years.
I held back a grin as I informed him that while I've been thankful for this job and growth, I would be putting in my resignation effective at the end of that summer. Oh I was kind enough, I offered to train whoever he wanted to hire so that whoever took over my classroom would be set up to go. I wasn't going to be a jerk and leave my students who I adored without being prepared. He stared at me quietly for a few moments trying to process what I said. "You sure you really want to leave?" he asked solemnly. "I mean I get it, there's no raise but maybe we could make something work? What am I supposed to do with so many other people leaving" I nodded. He sat there with his face in hands as I walked out, relieved that I was finally escaping and knowing that there's nothing he could do to make me stay.
That following school year along with me, the school lost 18 staff members. All to various schools/school systems that would treat us better than what we had known. I ended up passing my screening that summer and getting hired by the county as an elementary school special education teacher. There are things I recognize in myself that I've taken from those seven years that I wouldn't have had without that experience (I do pride myself on my ability to write a damn good IEP, work with kids with various disabilities, and have familiarity with special education that I would have never had otherwise) that in many ways I wouldn't trade now including some of my closest friends who are still by my side years later. The scars linger but there's something gratifying to know that no matter what, I will never return to where I used to be and tolerate what I put up with for all of those years.
I walked out that last day in August with a smile and haven't looked back since.
...
June came around. It had been an interesting month working in a 3rd-5th grade combination special education classroom. I started there with no desk or chair or any supplies. My first day, my new coworker came in with a catalog and told me to choose things to order like pen holders, organizers, whatever office supplies I thought I'd need. My friend who helped get me the job went with me to Ikea to buy a desk and a chair and we built it together. A day later, one of my students dropped a holepuncher on my new desk and made a hole through the desk. I used that desk despite the hole for years. My students overall were pretty awesome....except for the one who threw a tantrum and tore apart his workbooks when I asked him to keep working. And the 3rd grader who growled at me, plotted my death by pointing pencils at me like it was a gun. The classroom teacher, while lovely, had no concept of classroom management. She would tell me however, "you know, you're really good at your job. When I retire in 5 years, you should take over for me."
Overall, I felt confident when I walked into that meeting with the director. Why would anyone go back on their word, I wondered especially when I've been doing a good job. How naive, I was.
I sat there and nodded as she explained while she was going to give me a raise, my friend from high school who had been there for years would be promoted, funnily enough to take over for the classroom teacher who I was currently working with (she was being moved to be the reading specialist), and I would be moved to be her assistant. It wasn't like I didn't understand, she had been there for years and she deserved the promotion. Besides, we would make for an awesome team. Next year, Hillary, she promised me. I signed the contract because I needed the job and where else was I going?
...
We did make for an awesome team, her and I. Our kids made so much growth and we had so much fun together both working together and outside of school hanging out. I was sure I was proving myself even if slowly i began realizing the dark side of my work place. The lies, taking in students who did not belong in the school simply for the money that the state would pay, the administration who played favorites and used others as scapegoats. My friend tried to shield me as best as she could but I learned quickly that I was a scapegoat. In a small school, rumors amongst staff fly quickly. I'd hear about how I'd be blamed for this student's behavior or that student's actions. I heard that I was mean, I was this, I was that. If you can name it, I heard it about myself.
Needless to say come June, no matter what I did to prove myself, to show my students' progress and share the good moments, they told me I needed another year at my position. Meanwhile, new people who were hired on after I was who I knew would not last were promoted. I seethed silently but signed the contract. Where was I going? I needed a job and no matter how hard I searched, I had no luck with getting a new job. I felt cursed.
....
I was right. The two people promoted to the teacher positions quit within two months. They couldn't handle it, they said. I smirked in secret but kept a solemn face at their going away parties. It wouldn't behoove me to brag that I was right even if I wanted to shout it from the rooftop.
In April of that school year, my friend decided to quit. She had enough and she was going to California to chase her real dream of being an animator. I encouraged her to chase her dream, because who was I to stop my friend, even if I wanted her selfishly to stay with me. On the flip side of that, I figured this was the moment I'd finally get promoted. I mean who better to take over my own class than me?
That wasn't the case. The assistant director sat there and told me I just hadn't completely proven myself even after two years. This was after he watched a 4th grade girl threaten to throw a chair at me while I stayed calm and documented her behavior as I was taught to do by the school. I followed the exact protocol as we had in a training not too long before. I was shaking on the inside but I couldn't let it show. I heard later on that I was "triggering" her by following protocol and documenting her actions and I didn't do my job correctly. Never mind that she never threw the chair at me and I talked her down and I sat with her as she cried, calming her telling her she was going to be okay. Never mind that she had a documented emotional disability and none of us were ever given appropriate training for working with students with emotional disabilities (after all, we prided ourselves on being a school for children with learning disabilities). Never mind that no one stepped in to help me in the situation. It was inferred that I just was awful at my job. They were going to hire me a sub. The sub lasted for three weeks before she ran for her life. Good riddance. The rest of that year, other staff members helped to run my class while I kept on doing my job.
One day, I called out. My glasses were broken over the weekend; a child who I worked with as a behavioral therapist broke my glasses in half and there was no way I could drive to work. The next day, new glasses and all, I walked in and my coworker pulled me aside. "Hillary, I'm sorry for all of the shit I've said or talked about you over the years."
"What do you mean?" I knew she was talking about me behind my back; she was extremely two-faced but I wanted to hear what she had to say.
"Everyone says you're just mean and you don't do your job and I believed it. But I was you yesterday in the class, and the kids tore apart the classroom and no one provided me any support. You're doing the best you can and no one seems to see it."
"I know. Thank you for acknowledging this."
That June came around, I was paired with a different teacher. A 6th grader teacher. The teacher pulled me aside and told me, "I know what you want and I see your skills and ability despite what they say about you. Stick with me this year, do what I say, and I promise you'll have the teaching job."
...
That year, I worked my ass off. Not that I hadn't before but being paired with the administration's favorite teacher, I knew she had the power to make my year great or miserable. For the most part, we got along super well to the shock of most people who didn't like her either (she was seen as a suck-up and as someone who was a stickler for the rules). While we still had behavioral concerns in the class like my 3rd grader who plotted my death with pencils was now my 6th grader who still plotted my death but this time verbally. There was also a student who almost bashed my head in when I accidentally let the microwave get to zero and it made the beeping noise (he was extremely sensitive to sound and I got distracted grading papers that I forgot to keep an eye on the timer). But this time, I had someone who not just had my back but someone who actually had power to sway the directors.
It worked too. Not that I didn't hear the talk behind my back from my coworkers: I was mean, a bully, I wanted my own way, I talked about people, I didn't stay in my lane, whatever that could be said about me was said. None of that stopped. But that June came around and I was told potentially in September I would have a classroom of my own depending on the enrollment, I just needed to survive a summer in high school and she would let me know. I held on to hope.
That July, I was told come September I would have my own classroom as a 3rd-5th grade teacher.
....
Everyone was sure I was going to fail and that I was going to run when I got my own classroom. Other people did. But other people weren't me.
I wonder if bets were placed on me and how many people lost?
I started that year similarly to that first day of work years ago. My classroom was being painted and I had to teach in the conference room around a table for a week with no access to materials. My first day, my new third grader took off his shoe and put it to my new assistant's face and told her to, "Sniff!" We looked at each other in horror and I think we both wanted to run in that moment. We didn't.
That year was rough. We had by February that year three students with emotional disabilities who were insistent on either cursing us out or tearing apart the room or a daily basis. The school paid for a food behavior program in which they could earn a meal of their choice from outside each day if they could get through the day before without cursing (my assistant and I spent a lot of time running to McDonalds and Baskin Robbins). There were days where both of us at the end of the day wanted to throw in the towel. But we didn't. Despite it all, our kids made progress. My third grader who at the beginning of the year who removed his shoe so kindly for my assistant to sniff, who barely knew his alphabet, had already improved to reading on a 1st grade level in just a few months. Two of my kids who came to us with behavior plans, never had to have their behavior plans used and they were the leaders of my class that year. Even my kids with emotional disabilities, including my tiny little second grader who spent more time than not cursing everyone out, was learning to read. Both my assistant and I had flawless observations and our students were growing and thriving.
Throughout my years both as an assistant and as a teacher, the rumors and misconceptions about me never did stop. At one staff meeting that I had missed, I was apparently commended for being the only person with a perfect observation. I was also told that someone called out, "that's probably because she puts movies on all day and never teaches but just makes sure her room is perfect." The common theme was I was loud and mean and never taught until anyone actually spent time in my room and would then come to me and apologize. I could be rich for everytime someone told me they were sorry about believing the misconceptions about me after actually seeing me working. Even the assistant director who was now director apologized at one point for not getting to know me better and going with the misconceptions spread. Despite the rumors, despite the setbacks (like the year where my assistant teacher was caught sleeping with a 16 year old student, she got fired, and I ended up being the only person in my room for 3 months while also facing being subpoenaed if there was a court trial - there wasn't), I continued to get perfect observations for my teaching and classroom management. I'm sure that pissed people off to no end that I didn't run, that I didn't fail. On the plus side, I did hear someone say that our directors were wrong those years I didn't get the promotion and that I should have had the job earlier than I did. My last year as a teacher there, I even ended up getting the largest classroom in the building with the best view after spending years in a classroom with no view. I'm sure people claimed that was unfair but I also got a student that year in a wheelchair and that was the most navigatable classroom for his chair. Nonetheless, that didn't stop the whispers that I didn't deserve to have the classroom or to be where I was.
...
June came around again. It was the end of my 7th year there but this time I was done. I finally at this point not just had my provisional teaching certificate but my Master's in special education and actual teaching certificate. Despite my degree and teaching certificate, there was to be no salary adjustment, just the same pay to keep surviving in a toxic environment. But unlike the previous years where I had no options and signed my contract resentfully, I had an offer from another school closer to home, an interview with another school, and a screening with the public school system....all with better benefits, better pay, and out of a toxic environment.
That day when I walked in for my contract meeting, my director informed me that there would be no raise but oh and now we'd have to be at work even earlier and those breaks the staff takes to leave work to get lunch by walking to 7-11 next door, the company is frowning on that. He pushed the contract forward to me to sign because why would he expect me not to sign. I've signed all those years.
I held back a grin as I informed him that while I've been thankful for this job and growth, I would be putting in my resignation effective at the end of that summer. Oh I was kind enough, I offered to train whoever he wanted to hire so that whoever took over my classroom would be set up to go. I wasn't going to be a jerk and leave my students who I adored without being prepared. He stared at me quietly for a few moments trying to process what I said. "You sure you really want to leave?" he asked solemnly. "I mean I get it, there's no raise but maybe we could make something work? What am I supposed to do with so many other people leaving" I nodded. He sat there with his face in hands as I walked out, relieved that I was finally escaping and knowing that there's nothing he could do to make me stay.
That following school year along with me, the school lost 18 staff members. All to various schools/school systems that would treat us better than what we had known. I ended up passing my screening that summer and getting hired by the county as an elementary school special education teacher. There are things I recognize in myself that I've taken from those seven years that I wouldn't have had without that experience (I do pride myself on my ability to write a damn good IEP, work with kids with various disabilities, and have familiarity with special education that I would have never had otherwise) that in many ways I wouldn't trade now including some of my closest friends who are still by my side years later. The scars linger but there's something gratifying to know that no matter what, I will never return to where I used to be and tolerate what I put up with for all of those years.
I walked out that last day in August with a smile and haven't looked back since.