Thursday, October 25, 2007

Packemin High


My school is over crowded, really, really overcrowded and the kids keep coming. Thanks to NCLB, we got 8 new admits yesterday. It is now October 24 and classes are still being equalized.

Teacher A has a class that is a slightly higher level than mine that meets the exact same period. Teacher A has an enrollment of 45. The school knew this from day one but, since Teacher A's class is an elective, the school elected to only make one section and packed the kids in. Now the school has been accused of abusing the singleton rule and the class must be thinned out. Teacher A is a good guy. He doesn't want to hurt the kids. He took the lowest scoring group and added them to my roster, keeping them in his class. Teacher A now has a class well within class size limits. (My class is now at capacity.) Teacher A's class is within legal limits in name only. He still is teaching over 40 kids.

I spoke to my AP about this today. He started screaming some nonsense to me about how we have to do this to keep from going on a 14 period day. He then started blaming Teacher A for the problem (Teacher A did not create the class.) At this point I realized it was useless to talk to him and walked out.

One of the commenters on this blog always refers to schools like mine as "Packemin High". That is an understatement. Maybe more kids are transferring to my school so they won't be "left behind" but, from what I see, the way the school is headed we will be leaving them behind as well.

6 comments:

CaliforniaTeacherGuy said...

I sometimes wonder how much more of this nonsense you can stand. I know you stay for the kids, but when is enough enough?

Anonymous said...

You and your colleague could get into serious doo doo if anything happens to any of those phantom kids. This needs to be stopped ASAP. Where's your Chapter Chair?

Pissedoffteacher said...

Good question--the kids are sitting in my friend's class so we know where they are.

Teacherguy--probably one more year. Our new contract will give me brings max teacher salary to $100,000 and I will retire with a nice pension.

IMC Guy said...

What kind of district/school do you work in where the max salary is $100,000? That's more than principal money in my district.

NYC Educator said...

We live in the kind of district where a home you wouldn't even want to live in costs a half a million bucks. Actually we haven't hit that number yet, but it will take 22 years of service to do so.

Teachers in nearby suburbs make 20% more than us and we are the lowest paid teachers in the area. I live in the suburbs, and pay $8000 a year in property taxes.

The cost of living in NY is not comparable with that of other parts of the country. That's one reason a lot of beginning teachers, making well less than half 100K, don't last.

proofoflife said...

God Bless You Pissed! You are really going far beyond the call of duty! See, some of us teachers don't need merit pay to enhance our dedication to the students! Jamaica is getting closer and closer... can I fit into your suitcase?