Substitute Teaching: The school that had not changed

I worked at a high school for two years, as a volunteer, teacher assistant, and then a full time math/special ed teacher. I was offered to stay as a special ed teacher, but my goal was to become a general ed math teacher, so I left.

As a substitute teacher, I was rarely sent to that school. Being on the lower end of the food chain, I was sent to middle schools, and not the better ones. Then all of a sudden, more than ten years later, I started to get assignment at that school.

During my first few visits, I was very excited. I studied every staff member’s face and, surprisingly, recognized many. I saw my, then, assistant, who helped me become a better teacher, and other assistants and teachers with whom I worked.

What surprised me was that nothing had changed. Same bell schedule (many other schools had tweaked it with the hope to improve students’ performance). Same long (un-heard of) 20 minutes nutrition break, 35 minutes lunch (you can actually finish a whole salad ball), and, yes, 20 minutes of silent reading (long abandoned by all other schools, replaced by useless advisories, or breakfast in class).

At least as surprising, was to see the same teachers, at the same classroom! Wondering around trying to locate my old classroom, I discovered that the teacher next door, who was my mentor, but also my son’s Spanish teacher, was still there. Another of my son’s teachers, then a young and charismatic teacher, I located at the same classroom where he was twelve years earlier. Teachers did not even aged that much, and the ones I thought were, back then, quite old, don’t look any older.

I have marveled over this phenomenon every time I talk to someone who knows that school, until one day a lady who worked there pointed that something had changed dramatically - the main office!

She was absolutely right! Back in the days, there were two office personnel there, with the same first name, both pretty, both with a bright smile that welcomed you every morning, no matter how stressful the morning was. One had retired, the other was let go during one of the district’s unreasonable reorganizations. Replacing them is a new office manager who may be very efficient, but also very unpleasant.

A public school’s “main office” has enormous effect on school’s environment; it is the gate to the school, the first experience…

It has changed! And not for the better…