Sub Vision: Charter School (Again)

It is again about a charter, this time a well-established, district affiliated, charter school, that used to be one of the best in our area. I liked working there and hoped for more assignments, which came quite rarely...

Now I am called more often, but the more I do, the less I like it.

This school had changed. I gather that a group of self-interest teachers were taking over the school. They removed a beloved principal one year before his retirement, and replaced him with a young, inexperienced teacher, who has powerful friends. I am not sure if that event coincided with the school becoming a charter but something had changed since...

I was recently called to replace an English teacher who has a good reputation. Two of her classes were honors and were a pure pleasure. The other three were tougher, one of which was real trouble. As it often happens, it was at the end of the day, and relatively populated class. Even taking roll seemed to be quite a task...

The minute attendance was taken, a student grabbed the pass and was on his way out. As hard as I tried, I couldn't stop him from leaving, to the tune of his cheering classmates. From there on it went downhill; students where inattentive, disruptive, disrespectful and defiant. It may have been expected from students, but school's respond was less expected...

I don't take lightly students'  run classroom, and although I could (and maybe should) have let it go, and ignore other defiant acts as well, I decided to call the dean, assuming that dean's appearance would have some calming effect.

The person who appeared on behalf of the dean was a nice, older guy, whom I've seen several times managing staff's parking lot. The students were delighted to see him and were cheering him and themselves...

      He was not anxious to remove the students I wanted to send with him to the dean and instead suggested lecturing to them... I opted out of it and insisted on the removal. I also tried to get his attention regarding the boy who disappeared from the class, without much success...

In the end, that boy came back about half an hour later, and the students who were removed from the class, together with their friends who volunteered to go with them, returned, triumphal, to the classroom, and all I could do was resigning back to my seat and praying for the quick relief of the bell...

It is, no doubt, a lose lose situation, for the students who want to learn and those who don't, for their teacher, and for all the future substitute teachers who are sure to come.

This is a result of a limited budget that is badly appropriated by poor judgment of some individuals. It is a consequence of flexibility given to charters schools, enabling them to neglect critical, desperately needed, services, like discipline enforcement...