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.
