Job Search: In my own words

I just found out today that one of the turnaround schools that I was offered a position in, which has now reverted back to their old school, has hired their Guidance Counselor for this upcoming school year, without ever informing me of any of this.

I was fortunate enough to have been offered a position in a new school and was set to take off and become part of this illustrious union of teachers.  For that I am grateful.  For the subsequent steps, I am quite angry.  I was offered the position on a Thursday, and on that Friday afternoon, I found out that the Union's grievance was upheld and all of these underperforming schools would now return back to their old format.  So let me get this straight... 50% of the staff was fired because a school was underperforming for multiple years, and now the staff in the building has a chance to get their positions back.  Makes sense.

I'm all for the bigger schools and I think that the smaller academy system is a very questionable idea.   A large reason that these smaller academies were set up were to bring in new staff, create a sense of community and offer more options for the students city-wide.  The problem is what this has done is that it has created anxieties of job security amongst the staff, the overall rating system of standardized testing - which was a big reason why these schools were underperforming - is lackluster, and the releasing of teacher ratings to public was a terrible move.  The new schools don't offer students more options, they limit the students' options.  The amount of Advanced Placement classes are down, amongst many other options like student clubs, or more interesting classes.  The bigger the school the better because the students get more options in and out of the classroom.  When more options are organized through a big school, the students will be better off, I promise you.  The more you make these students look outside of school and fend for themselves, the less likely they are to pursue these options.

What's also happening is that the smaller academies are forcing the staff to take on much more responsibilities, and aren't able to properly do their jobs to their fullest potential.  The students are suffering, the staff is suffering, the parents are suffering.  It's depressing writing about this.

There is also a terrible lack of leadership.  It's embarrassing.  Complacency is an overarching problem in a lot of these schools.  Older staff want to stick with what they've been doing, and new staff want to implement new initiatives.  Problem is, new staff needs the old staff to help.  Not to mention the school system as a whole is under-staffed, and what is the system doing? Freezing it, so nobody can get into the system, unless it's a new school.  Bring me in, I'm energetic, I'll do anything to keep my job and create more opportunities for students; just like I did as an intern.

This is obviously not a well thought out article that I have written.  This is just a spew of feelings in no discernible order.  It's frustration of experience.  It's frustration of the job search.  In what field could you be offered a job, and have to be sent private e-mails from a third party, telling you to look elsewhere because your position is in limbo.  It sucks that it's coming from the school system of New York City.

The people that hired me never contacted me.  Do you want to know why? That's great, because so do I.  I have yet to receive any sort of word from any of the four or five people that interviewed me.  Did I mention also that throughout my interview, a few of them were on their cell phones during my interview.  Classy move.

I fit the description of what these new schools are looking for, initiative, risk taking, team-playing, willing to do whatever it takes to help all students succeed; new blood to pump life into a school that needs it.  I learned a great deal from my relative experience, my internship experience, my graduate program, which was all set-up to take on the new initiatives that are supposed to take place.  Problem is, I can't get in.  To be honest with you, I've almost come to the point to where I don't want to be in this system anymore.  But what sucks is that I have invested the past three years and thousands of dollars into a graduate degree.  I want to make something of that degree, I want to do something relative to what I have studied and have devoted my past three years to, I want to make a difference, I want to effect change, I want to help the people that need helping, I want a job, I want a career.

Where is my job search taking me right now?  I'm looking into moving to Los Angeles because a close friend is offering me a place to stay for a few months.  I hear it's not much better over there, but I really want to get this bad taste out of my mouth from what has transpired over the past two months.  Convince me otherwise, New York City school system.  Convince me to stay.

Blogging for my school

My first blog post on nyit.edu

I talk about my upcoming year as a Head Resident Advisor, Co-Director of NYIT Manhattan's Community Service Center, and School Counselor Intern at Stuyvesant High School and the High School for Arts and Technology.

Cyber Bullying: Bystanders

I recently did a presentation to my classmates on cyber bullying. The research I found was fairly eye opening. I am fairly aware of the effects of Cyber Bullying, and the causes that they have on today's children. Or so I thought.

As someone who (believes) will be a school counselor, doing research into this topic, I had to put myself into the shoes of an adolescent, a parent, and an educator. It was easy to put myself in the shoes of an adolescent as I was one ten years ago. When I think back to my time going through high school, and middle school, I consider myself fairly lucky in that I wasn't bullied too much.

I was bullied here and there, but I was able to get along with most of the different cliques growing up. I played sports, I had friends of all races, colors and creeds. I can specifically remember in high school one day being bullied for money by one student in my grade on my walk home from school, but because I was friendly with his good friend, he told the bully to back off, and the bully did. I of course have not forgot about that act of kindness.

It made me think about victims of cyber bullying. A lot of responsibility needs to be put on the bystanders of cyber bullying, if of course it takes place in a public forum like a facebook news feed or a recipient of mass emailing/texting. It is easy to laugh along with people when an act of cyber bullying takes place, or to just ignore it.

One suggestion I have for bystanders is that I ask for people to start following up with "victims" of cyber bullying the next day in person to see how they are doing. Go up to that person the next day, and say to them "hey, I saw what that person posted about you the other day, that wasn't so cool, how are you doing?"

That act of kindness will go a long way. The other suggestion is for you to directly message, and not post on the thread, to the person(s) who attacked the victim and say to them "that wasn't cool, I hate to be the party pooper, but come on, not cool."

If you want to go the extra mile, and if you feel comfortable to do so, post on the thread "that's not cool," or "Ouch."

Cyber Bullying is no laughing matter, if you see someone getting attacked repeatedly or getting called out for something, the best thing to do is to follow up with that person. Tell them that you are there for them.

Also please remember this one thing. It is an online world, it is not your real world, you can easily deactivate your account, share your feelings with a friend or an adult. Don't let your cyber world spiral out of control.