Bad Company

How a Career Teacher Ended Up in Exile

The Background

I worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District for 24 years, in Cypress Park, a community marked by poverty, limited education, gang warfare, and a whole lot of heart. I taught fifth grade mostly, but also third and fourth grades, and most recently, a combination of fourth and fifth grades. My students were not on grade level, a lot were angry about some bad curves life had thrown them, one refused to speak, some simply didn’t care about school, and all were actually funny characters with a lot of spirit. In my second to last year there, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer, underwent a single mastectomy, eight punishing rounds of chemo, and 25 of radiation. During that time, I continued to teach, except on chemo infusion days, the time I was hospitalized with sepsis, and a couple of days when my white blood cells just fled the premises. So I think most people would agree that easy it was not.

Get Out While You Can

My plan was to pivot to teaching at a Catholic school, something I had wanted to do for a long time. Everyone was aware of my plan to retire and work elsewhere. Any trouble I caused another should have been ameliorated by this fact. But my principal was not ameliorated. In her first weeks as principal four years ago now, she demanded that all teachers turn in lesson plans by 7:30 each Monday morning on the district platform, Schoology. I told her I would not, as that was a clear and unequivocal violation of Article IX of the bargaining agreement between the District and United Teachers Los Angeles. I was polite, as this was neither personal nor political. You just can’t ignore the contract. She was angry and refused to back down or admit she was wrong. She continued to insist on this. I told other teachers, who were uniformly against it but afraid to say anything, to simply ignore it, and I would bring it up in our meeting. I did so and she tried to rationalize it as “not asking for a particular format,” which was nonsense. I continued to stand up for the teachers, and she was forced to go to Labor Relations, which told her she was wrong. That was the beginning of her campaign to make me a non-person. She took away my GATE coordinator role without telling me, took anyone else’s side against me no matter what, tried to ignore me at meetings, sprang tasks on me with no warning, and stole my Lin Manuel-Miranda chant that I used with my students every morning (“Eyes up! Hearts up! Minds sharp! Compassion on full blast! Okay, here we go!”) to use in a meeting with the District Superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, and a forum of principals, as if she inspired children every day.

How Can It Get Worse?

Fast forward to January 2024, when our school participated in the Spelling Bee for the first time. I prepped my students for weeks, having them stand at the back of the room, dictating words and sentences, making them spell the words out loud. At the school bee, our moderator, a tool handpicked by the principal, garbled the words so frequently and so much that students could not understand what she was saying two-thirds of the time. I told the principal, but she didn’t care. My students were extremely frustrated and some were crying. I marched over to the coordinator and told her clearly that she hadn’t enunciated the words and they couldn’t understand her. She reported what I said to the principal and told the principal I had yelled at her and said my students were robbed, which was ridiculous. Two weeks later, on February 13th, I had to attend a meeting in the principal’s office. She threw every document in the LAUSD canon at me, including child abuse, ethics violations, and harassment of another employee. I told unequivocally that I did not yell, I made myself clear, and that I had done nothing wrong. My students were on my side and loved that I stuck up for them. She said that I had abused children because I had said this in a room full of students, and I responded that they were not listening to me, but milling around the refreshment table, and that furthermore, for my employer to accuse a career teacher of child abuse based on the word of some thin-skinned ass-kisser who had been at the school not even a year, was insulting beyond belief. (I used more politic words, yes I did.)

The Low Point

This encounter nearly crushed my spirit and my will to go to work. I had to ask my oncologist for a note for a few days off, because I was crying en route to work every day. Accusing a teacher of child abuse because you have a personal vendetta against that teacher is as low ethically as it’s possible to go.

Don’t Let the Door Hit You On Your Way Out

When the end of the year rolled around, I had no retirement party, no celebratory evening to mark my nearly quarter century in the public school trenches. Two friends put together a quiet and very nice lunch in the meeting room, and the only person who made any remarks was me, because the principal would not. Our UTLA chair and his friends didn’t want anything to do with me for reasons I don’t know, except that I was out of favor with the principal. No one said anything to me when I left for the last time. It was surreal. I had given so much to the school and community, including raising $20,000+ for the family of one of my students who burned to death in their illegally converted garage and marshaling years of fifth graders into the USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative program, which gave them a comprehensive shot at getting into competitive colleges. It was traumatic in a way.

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

Nothing could better illustrate the grinding relentless machine of the public school system which sucks up souls and spits out identical little stamps, people afraid to speak up, speak out, or fight back. Sure, if it takes zero bravery (union rallies, community activists screaming about the injustice of meritocracy), public school teachers are right there, as well as legions of docile students trained in groupthink, but if you want one to actually stand up for truth, look elsewhere. The Los Angeles Unified School District should be ashamed of hiring and cultivating an employee such as that principal at the expense of the mental health of dozens of people who have worked at that school. When I went to the District with an official complaint, in response to the question “What outcome would you like to see?” I wrote that I just wanted the harassment and intimidation to stop. As expected, LAUSD sided with the principal and essentially told me that I was lying, crazy, or both, take your pick. This is how this District, at the top level, treats career teachers who have done everything in their power to change the dynamics at play in neglected and forlorn corner of our city. At this moment in time, teacher morale is the lowest it has ever been. Do not wonder why. When vindictiveness and hostile micromanagement substitute for leadership, expect more of the same.

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