Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Reassign THIS

In this country, people who choose to be teachers usually choose the districts where they want to work. Often, they will choose the particular school they want to work at and hope that the interview goes well.

It is my understanding from some French friends of mine that in France, you become a teacher and then you tell the government where you would like to work and they tell you where they would like to send you. And if you want the job, you will go.

It's an awful lot like the military. You go where they send you. You put in for various locations, ask for transfers, but you don't just go around France applying for jobs willy nilly (it helps if you really use a French accent and say weeeeely neeeeely. Do it. It might be the only smirk you make during this post!)

Our district has perhaps been taken over by the French or the military, because we suddenly have no say in where we are teaching and in some cases, what we are teaching, and this is unheard of.

The good news is that this principal is no longer. Well, ok, she didn't expire, she just got moved to another building and demoted. That will be a shock to the many parents who were moving their kids to her new school to try to get away from her.

Some bad news. On the last day of school, the superintendent asked if 6 people would seriously consider moving to another school, voluntarily. This is really not something anyone is thinking about during the last 2 hours of the school year! And she needed an answer within days.

Now, had she opened with "I'm happy to tell you that the liar who has been in charge of you for 3 years will now be moved to another building and you can breathe again" people would have been so elated and overcome with emotion that 6 hands would have gone in the air before they even realized what they were volunteering for. Which would have been ironic.

However, this news of the transfer had to be kept top secret for reasons I will never understand, allowing rumors to spread like pink eye in a pond in August.

And no one volunteered.  Bastards.

And so, people are getting letters. Just opening their mailboxes one day to find that they are have been "reassigned" and could they come in and talk about their "reassignment".

And the sad part is that it is my friends who keep leaving! One is moving on to the high school, by her choice. Another had her position axed, after 18 years, and though she was encouraged to stay positive because something would come up, she chose to go to another town. And now at least 2 more have been "reassigned" and that's only what I've heard about.

It would take 25 posts to explain the upheaval that our district has seen in the past few years, and the upheaval that we plan to see in the next few more. And they wouldn't be amusing, and I do like to try to keep things light around here.

I know we are all lucky to still have jobs. Well paying jobs, that we've taken a million courses so we could achieve this, thank you.

And it's a damned good thing that those of us that are still here really do like what we do.

And I don't spend a lot of time worrying about my job because I like what I do and I really believe there will be something for me for years to come, no matter what awful changes are made.  I can scrub a toilet like nobody's business.

It just makes me nervous when someone else is deciding who goes where and if they don't like it, tough. Because this is not the norm in this country.

And unlike the military, there are NO hot men here to make the reassignments slightly worthwhile.

And unlike France, we don't have many women who are so well dressed that it's a pleasure for the eye, no matter your gender.
 

2 comments:

  1. School districts are fast becoming dictatorships.... glad you lost your principal but sad you're losing your friends!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. My friend is a teacher and I totally agree with the previous commenter about it being a dictatorship.

    But on the other hand? It's not just teaching. I've been reassigned to 3 different bosses since December. And I don't get any letters, I get a phone call saying "we let a bunch of people go, report to this new dude tomorrow."

    ReplyDelete

I love comments almost as much as I love summer. I reply to all comments except those ridiculous anonymous comments offering me dirty deeds and real estate. When you leave your comment, please make sure your own settings will allow me to reply to you. Nothing makes me sadder than replying to your comments and then realizing it’s going to the no-reply@blogger address!