Time Travel and Foolproof Logic

The District has reached a new low in logic. For the last few years, we’ve had these things called “Buy-Back Days.” They are professional development days but because of the contract or because the district is cheap or something, they’ve been optional, and only the people who go to them get paid. Then the people who want more money can go, some of us can sleep in, and the district doesn’t have to pay for everyone. Then, to make things a little more confusing, our school is in the “intensive Support Network" and we have three more optional professional development days. For most of these days less than half of our staff showed up, not because we don’t want the extra money, but because we’re generally exhausted. I went to two of them, but I don’t know if they were district-wide or particular to our school.

Now things get interesting. We just got a new contract, as I mentioned, and it’s retroactive to the beginning of the school year. Under this contract, the Buy-Back Days are mandatory and we are compensated for them. Unfortunately, the Buy-Back Days have all passed. They might put one at the end of the year for people to make up, but that’s unclear, and it’s also one day, not three. So the District is telling me that I need to have gone to a training in October of 2005 in order to fulfill my contract. As much as I would like to do that, there’s really nothing at all that I can do about it, as my time machine happens to be broken at the moment.

I really shouldn’t be surprised though; this is the district that put June 31st on the official calendar. And I’ve seen the signs displaying our “Suspension Reduction Targets” (admirable) and “Attendance Reduction Targets” (slightly less admirable. They might possibly mean to reduce absences and not attendance. Although one never knows.)
While we’re at it, we might want to question the business model of firing all the first-year teachers, alienating them with the ridiculous re-application process, spending a ton of money to try and recruit new teachers, and then wonder why we can’t get all the vacancies filled. Hmmm…..

Comments

A Loss

(I have been putting off finishing this blog post for months. You'll see why) Today, I was cleaning a bookshelf and I found the journal from one of my third-grade students, who I call Fred in my book , in 2001. I still had it because he didn't come to the last day of school to get his stuff this year and I guess it got put in a pile and somehow I've kept it with me. He didn't come to the last day of school, probably because his family was a mess: dad in prison, mom in an abusive relationship, all the kids (understandably) acting out violently. Fred was expelled from our school in second grade for hitting a teacher. Then he was expelled from the other school, I don't know why, at the end of second grade. He came back on the condition from the administration that he be in my class because I had him as a student in first grade and he listened to me and worked well with me. We had a really good relationship, although Fred was definitely not easy to have in class....

A New Prison, Part Two

Second very long part of the prison visit report. After we got all the paperwork filled out and went through the metal detector, we got visitation slips with the name of the inmate, and made our way over to the other building for visitation. This is not maximum security so thankfully you can just sit next to the inmates, and not be separated by glass or have to use a telephone to talk. First, you get a gate unlocked and go into a holding pen that is of course in direct sunlight (or rain if it's that season) and surrounded by fences topped with razor wire. You wait there until the gate at the other end is unlocked. This holding pen was a little bigger and less claustrophobic than the other prison (I do not have any claustrophobia and I came very close to a panic attack once at the other place) and they opened the other gate more quickly. Then you walk, again in blazing sunlight (or rain) to the visitation building. This one was less of a walk than the other pri...

A New Prison, Part 1

My former student, friend, and co-author was moved to a new prison during COVID. We (myself, Mitali, and his Abuela) have visited a couple of times via the video visit functionality they set up, but we've also been trying to visit in person, ever since in-person visits were allowed again. After four of them being canceled (sometimes we were told why, sometimes not), we finally got a visit. I was super nervous about this visit. (I felt better when Mitali mentioned that she was also, because she is an inherently positive and optimistic person!) I am not proud of this, but there was a large part of me that was hoping that the visit would be canceled, just like the previous four were. I felt a little better when someone I know messaged me privately to tell me that they had had very good experiences visiting a family member in that prison. But I still didn't sleep well at all that night, worrying about the guards, the many things that could go wrong, and the projected 111-degree hea...

Bronwyn Harris, Author

Search This Blog