Criminalizing Teachers
At the beginning of last year, I was still wrestling with the choice of whether or not to return to my school for another year. On the one hand, I really enjoy teaching, and looked forward to continuing to work with my colleagues, and working with a new class of fourth graders. On the other hand, the atmosphere in which I was working was downright toxic, and diminishing my overall quality of life.
I batted the decision back and forth until mid-March. At the time, one of my closest friends in the building (and, just two years prior, the school’s Mile High Teacher of the Year) was nearing the end of an incredibly stressful remediation plan. (For folks who don’t know, a remediation plan is one of the necessary steps to be taken before a non-probationary teacher can be terminated.) Despite the fact that we believed the plan was unjustified, and despite the fact that the plan required her to do an absurd amount of extra work and documentation, my friend did every last thing asked of her. She didn’t miss a single day of work, even though the job had gotten so tough