RIF (Reduction In Force) Hearing
It is 8:30 am and I am sitting in the basement of the California Marketplace with close to 1,000 other teachers waiting for a hearing to begin that might decide the fate for all of us. It is chaotic, confusing, rumors of what might or might not happen are flying through the room, and it is all thoroughly depressing.
I look around the room and see many familiar faces. Some of these teachers were in my classrooms at CSUN six years ago when I went back to school to get my credential so I could become a full time classroom educator. Many were in my BTSA classes (two more years of support and mentoring classes for probationary teachers required by the state and supplied by the district) and we continued to keep in touch to share ideas, cares, worries and hopes over the last four years.
We are the teachers who are threatened with the loss of our jobs and livelihoods. We are the teachers who have been in the classroom for 4 years and would be starting our 5th year in the fall of 2010. We are the teachers that are coming into our prime.
For most of us, the early management missteps have been corrected and the standards based, fast paced curriculum is fully understood. We have learned how to manage our classes, converse with parents, communicate with administration, maneuver through the district bureaucracy, and relate to the politics of a teaching staff. We have learned when and what needs to be taught so that our students have the best opportunity to shine on all the various district and state tests. Most importantly, we have created dozens of lessons, collaborated with peers, taken professional development classes to extend and enrich our teaching of curriculum so that our students have a full, well rounded education that goes further and deeper than what a district test may judge.
It makes me very sad that the LAUSD, Sacramento Legislature, Governor and Federal Government are not doing everything they possibly can to stop the loss of these valuable teachers. I look around the room and wonder how many will come back if they lose their jobs this year. After the district has invested so much in testing, training, workshops, professional development, and mentoring, why would they abandon them just as they are coming into their most effective instructional years?
Where is the vision for the future? When did public education become the whipping boy for all the problems? Why do so many think that Charters are the magic key when almost all studies show they make little or no difference and in many cases are just making a few people rich while students continue to struggle and fail?
It is now 5:00 pm and the lawyers have said their piece for the day. These hearings will go on for another possible 15 days. State testing begins next week in Middle School and in two weeks in elementary.
Shouldn’t I be in my class preparing my students? Shouldn’t the district be finding every penny they can to keep and support dedicated classroom professionals? Think of all the money spent on judge and lawyers fees, district HR employees, building rental, and hundreds of substitutes by holding these hearings. Think of all the things I could have taught my kids today instead of sitting in the basement of this building.
As I walk to my car, I contemplate how I will spend the hour of rush hour traffic I am about to embark on. I will hand my immediate fate of job or no job to whatever gods hold the strings and think of how to best introduce tomorrow a surface area math project that melds into a history lesson about colonial architecture.
