Emergency Teacher (25 page)
Authors: Christina Asquith
That night I felt queasyâa mixture of fear, anger, resentment, and guilt was building up inside me. So I decided to release these emotions the only way I could: with an article in the
Public School Notebook
, a free quarterly newspaper devoted to the school district.
During my next coverage, I interviewed all the special ed kids, then I called home and interviewed their mothers. After school, I interviewed the head of recruitment downtown. The article was a critical but straightforward look at the effect of the vacancies:
On a recent Thursday afternoon, while most students at Julia de Burgos Bilingual Middle School worked on their subjects, José G. and Donnielle M. aimlessly circled the school halls, stopping in the gymnasium, then at the lockers and finally ducking inside an administrator's office to hide from the school security.
“We run around the hallways because we don't got a teacher,” said José, 14. “We don't learn nothingâjust a wasted day.”
Seven months into the school year and the problem of teacher vacancies in Philadelphia schools is as grave as ever, some say with slim signs of improving. Across the district, thousands of students such as José and Donnielle arrive at school each day to face a revolving door of untrained substitutes, disorganization, busy work, and trouble because their classroom has no assigned teacher.
Yet many worry that unless the Office of Human Resources devises some new and drastic sales pitches as the recruiting season begins, they'll face the same problems or worse next year. The school district's Office of Human Resources pegs the number of vacancies district wide at 200, down from 250 in September, out of a total of 12,000 teachers district wide. The School district defines vacancies as any position not filled by an appointed teacher.
But that number does not capture the extent of the problem. Many vacancies have been covered by rotating long-term substitutes, or schools have cut out positions for mentally gifted, Spanish computer, English as a Second Language, and other teachers. Nor does the district count the hundreds of untrained apprentice teachers as vacancies, although they can receive no training before they step into the classroom, are not certified, and have a high rate of turnover.
Most schools just deal with the shortage day to day, with teachers forsaking their prep time and students subjected to new fill-ins every 45 minutes. In some schools, the library has shut down because the librarian covers classes.
“We've never had it so bad,” said Harriet Liss, the roster chairperson at Julia de Burgos. “It's devastating for staff because they're bombarded with coverages and of course it hurts the kids and disrupts the whole learning process.”
I ended my article with:
Until a teacher arrives, students like José and Donnielle are resigned to cut class or face another substitute. Although another long-term substitute has been appointed to his class, he was absent on this day.
“All they do is give us crossword puzzles all day long, and if you don't want to do it the teacher gets mad,” says Donnielle. “But everyone is sick and tired of doing crossword puzzles.”
Donnielle's mother, Debra H., says she has complained but is slowly giving up hope that her son will gain much from this year.
“He hasn't had no educationâhe hasn't had any work,” she said. “He just goes from one teacher to another. Sometime I don't even send him.”
When the article came out, Ms. Vinitzsky photocopied it and placed it in each teacher's mailbox. She loved it and called me a hero. I heard the principal was furious. She never spoke to me about it, though after the article, all my field trip requests were denied, and our class never received the Ice-Cream Scoop books that she'd said she ordered for us. She brushed me off each time I'd ask her, and eventually my students forgot about them.
Javier was exceeding my worst expectations. He was very bright and had been well behaved for a short time, but then grew wild and violent. Sometimes he would listen and pay attention in the morning with me. Sometimes he laughed like a madman, got up, and walked out of class. Other times he'd threaten the students and would get into fistfights with Pedro. If I sent him to Mrs. G., she sent him back immediately. Sometimes Ms. Vinitzsky took him, but other times her office was full.
One day I intentionally went to Mrs. G.'s office to phone his mother. I told her everything that had been happening in class. I didn't even bother with trying to find three positive things to say; I just cut to the chase. Her voice was tired and impatient.
“Javier needs medicine for problems he's got,” she told me. “He's finished it and I haven't picked up the refill yet.”
I knew Javier was on some kind of medication to calm him down. He talked about how he hated it because it made him drowsy and dulled.
“When he misses it, it's worse because it's addictive,” she added.
“Okay,” I said, because I couldn't think of anything else to say. I hung up and turned to Mrs. G. “Do you think the mom can be useful in helping us with him?”
“No,” she said. She could see me slumped in my chair, and her voice was soft and sympathetic. “After a certain amount of time they give up. She has three children. The oldest girl is eight months pregnant. Who knows who the father is? The middle one is the best one, and Javier is special education.”
“I didn't know that,” I said.
“The parents get so beaten down they don't care anymore, and the kids know it. Do your parents love you?” she asked. The question caught me totally by surprise.
“Do your parents love you?” she asked again.
“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”
“Well, ask these kids,” she said. “Some say yes, but most will just look at you. Or say âI dunno' or âno.' And when you have problems, where do you go?” she asked. “Home? Well, these kids don't have a home. Or the problem is home.”
I thought about Josh, who'd complained about his alcoholic father or a shooting he heard outside his window. I thought about Vanessa and Frances, whose dads were in jail, and about Pedro, who wanted to live with his mom instead of his grandma. I tried to imagine my own life without the unspoken love and stability of my parents and home.
“Try to imagine how they feel,” Mrs. G. said. I nodded and left her office.
When I got in my car, I thought about what she'd said. Was it true that some of these parents didn't love their children? I couldn't think of a single parent who didn't come to meetings, return my calls, or try hard for their child. Even Jovani's mom clearly loved her boy. The parents I met worked hard and had aspirations for their children, and they were just as overwhelmed as the teachers were. What I did see in a lot of them was frustration and a feeling of powerlessness. Looking at the education their children received, how could they feel otherwise? Was it their own fault, or was it the school's?
The only people more terrifying to the principal than downtown administrators were special education parents. We were so “out of compliance,” as Mrs. G. called it, that one phone call to a lawyer could put the district in the center of a million-dollar civil rights lawsuit, as it had in the pastâand that meant someone would get dismissed. So when I secretly notified Wilson's grandma of the battle between me and the special education woman for her grandson, she called the school. They were now suddenly “happy to discuss this.” Wilson was moving in with me.
Wilson's grandma's thick, broken English was a little difficult to understand, but I guessed that Wilson had said nice things about me because she got right to the point. “I want Wilson with you,” she said.
Wilson grinned. He'd returned to my class whenever he could escape, and in only weeks he had risen to become one of my favorites. Wilson had an abundance of energy, creativity, and spark, like the new kid at the school who had finally made friends. When I directed his energy to schoolwork, he flourished. When he got an answer right, we shared a little smile. He was ambitious, too, always asking to stay after school. He did not seem to have a learning impediment like Jovani, who was not even listed as special education. I began to wonder why Wilson was even labeled as such.
“Wilson has been wonderful in class,” I told her. “He participates, he reads, he works well with others and is making friends. And I'm so proud of the way he pushed to get into our class. To be honest, I don't understand why he's listed special education.”
His grandma explained that while she was working as a teacher's aide at Wilson's elementary school she had noticed him memorizing words rather than learning them. She thought special ed would help.
“I don't know if I did the right thing,” she said. “He never liked it.”
I asked Wilson: “Why didn't you like it?”
He shook his head. “It makes me feel bad.”
We talked awhile about Julia de Burgos school, and I was stunned at how Wilson's grandma had been kept in the dark. His grandma had no idea that Wilson's special education teacher had left early in October, supposedly for health reasons, and that he had had only rotating substitutes since then. She thought we had a real special education program and had been blaming Wilson for his pink slips.
I told her that most of the special ed classes didn't have teachers and the classes were out of control. I said Wilson had begged me to be his teacher. She listened with a mix of anger, pity, and pride. We chatted for nearly half an hour. We'd become a united front by the time the special ed teacher, Mrs. Q., barged in.
“Oh, hello. Good to see you. Hiiiiii, Wilson,” she smiled, carrying stacks of paperwork.” She beamed at Wilson as if he were her class pet.
The grandma straightened up and stared at her. “I don't know you,” she said coldly. “I want my grandson taken out of special education. The teacher say he is doing really well with her, and he's been here only three weeks. Well, he didn't do well in special education classes,” she said.
The special education teacher's smile disappeared. She took out some paperwork and began to flip through it.
“I evaluated him,” she said in a grave tone. “He reads at a second-grade level. His math is at a third-grade level.” She rambled on about his decoding skills, using a host of special education jargon. Wilson's grandma looked confused.
“Now, I still need to get an IEP on him,” Mrs. Q. said.
“What that mean?” Wilson's grandma asked. She looked uncertain. “I don't want him in special ed no more.”
Mrs. Q. slowly repeated “I-E-P,” and then continued her esoteric analysis of Wilson's “decoding skills.” She was hanging on tight to him. Moving Wilson into my class would involve doing seven pages of IEP paperwork. The paperwork had to be doneâeven if there was no teacher to look at it.
Wilson's grandma still wanted Wilson to stay in my classroom.
“Well, we could put him in the learning disabled category, and have him included in Ms. Asquith's classroom,” Mrs. Q. said. “This way he can still receive special services. Ms. Asquith can come to me and say, âI need this and this for Wilson,' and it will be the principal's responsibility to provide those resources.”
Legally, she was right, but in reality, there were no “special services” available. Where had she been all year? I routinely asked for help for my special education students and was ignored. Jovani had plummeted into desperate territory without a word from Mrs. Q.
