A Sign of the Times

Back in October, I posted about this substitute teacher I had who didn't like the way I had written something in my plans about how to deal with my autistic boy, and had gone to Mr. Principal about it. She had never been in the building before, and didn't even know me. But Mr. Principal took her side and called me in to his office to deal with it. I was pissed, and got our union involved. Not only did he call me into his office, but he followed it up with a very formal email directing me to add information to my substitute folder after he had approved it first, and he wanted it done by a specific day that week. It was awful. So the union president got involved and paid him a visit. One of the things she did was meet with me first, and she went through the student's Individual Education Plan, highlighting anything that seemed to support the very brief statement I had made in my sub plans. Then, armed with that, she went to meet with Mr. Principal. Later, as we talked about how it went, she brought up that Mr. Principal, in his own defense, mentioned that someone in the staff room had heard me say something about a student. This is so ridiculous, I don't even know where to begin. It bothered my on so many levels. One, Mr. Principal lies to "make his point." We know he lies. Two, I never really go into the staff room. My meager 30 minute planning is at the end of the day, so at my meager 30 minute lunch break, I'm usually getting things ready for the afternoon. Finally, really? I said something about a student? Highly unlikely, and most teachers in the staff lounge complain about a student for one reason or other. When you have 25+ students to deal with daily, generally there is something to complain about. It really bugged me that someone, if he or she did hear me complain about some kid, went and tattled. And if it was a teacher, that meant they were a member of our union, and I go out of my way to try to support every teacher that comes to me with a problem. So I was hugely upset about this. I told my closest friends at school about it, crying as I did so. My teammate got very angry, as we all know about the tattling, and have been tattled on by various people. So she immediately went to her room and made this sign: What happens in the staff room, stays in the staff room. C'mon people, we have to have some place to vent! And she put it up on the door that led to the outside. Well, fast forward to last Wednesday. Wednesday was a late-start day for us. We have 9 late start days throughout the year. Mr. Principal gets a certain number of those days, and we get a certain number. And as always, he gets more than we do. Anyway, Wednesday was late start day, and was principal controlled. Ick. But we gathered in the library anyway. Now, Mr. Principal is not an idiot, I don't think, and by now if he thinks his staff feels hunky-dory, there's no hope for him. I think he does know how unhappy we are. He's got to. First was this report from the state where it made it obvious that the staff feels there is a communication problem, and that only 40% or less of the staff feel comfortable taking problems or concerns to him. Follow that by the fact that a union climate survey was sent out, and he knows what questions were asked either because he was sent one or because one of his cronies showed it to him. So he really tried to address communication woes and a few things that the staff is unhappy with, mostly that many certified support teachers do not see kids on Fridays. This makes classroom teachers mad. They make our salary, but only see small groups of kids Mon- Thurs?? Anyway...That was the first hour. The second hour was this red cars video that he had told me about when he was trying to lecture me about being negative. So then we have to focus on positive thinking and he had the audacity to bring up the union survey (but I didn't hear the comment, as I had tuned him out, as usual...). Then the next thing I know he put up the next power point slide, and it is of that sign from the staff room. He said someone had brought this to his attention. We sat in shocked silence. Not shocked because of what the sign said; we all liked the sign. More shocked that he took the sign down, scanned it, put it in his power point presentation, and then put the sign back into the staff room. Then he wanted us to discuss the sign. Really? One of the teachers next to me (I don't know if she knew who made the sign) said, "Shouldn't he be asking why someone felt so strongly about something that they made the sign?" Instead, we knew he wanted us to get angry about the sign. Well, let me tell you, the sign is still there. Incredible. He treats us like children.