On Tuesday afternoon, a student that has a lot of history (if you know what I mean) attempted to walk out of my classroom in order to avoid getting into trouble. I was preventing his exit; he attempted to get around me by grabbing and twisting my wrist. My wrist is sore and sprained, but otherwise I’m okay. I filed an incident report with the school and went to the local precinct to press charges against the student.
On Wednesday morning, I went to the workman’s comp doctor to get patched up. I returned to school at around 10:45.
That afternoon, I played Phone Tag with a guy who identified himself as an investigator from School Police. His last message to me was “rather than play phone tag, I’ll just come up to the school on Thursday morning.” Thursday morning he comes up, I’m in the office dropping off my roll book. I don’t know for sure that it is the guy who called me, so I don’t say anything. He asks to meet with the Principal. In the course of talking to the principal, he realizes that the teacher he is looking for is, in fact, in the same room with him.
So, we meet, he runs me through the process, I tell him what he’s done, he determines that there’s actually nothing he needs to do. He leaves. On his way out, the principal double checks that there’s nothing the Investigator needs from him.
At the end of the day Thursday, the Principal is in a bad mood and yells at his secretaries in front of everyone in the office. I happen to be in the office. He then says “Ms. [Me], can I see you in my office?” He’s pissed and I’m not sure what he wants.
First question: “Why was [Investigator] up in my building?”
Second question: “You know we’re taking care of the situation, correct?”
My response (in short)
1) Secretary #1 informed me yesterday afternoon that I had missed a call from a man from school police. I took the message and I called him back and left a voicemail. He called me back later that afternoon and left a voicemail saying rather than playing phone tag, he’d come up to school to talk to me.
2) He came up this morning. I spoke with him in the conference room. When he asked what action was being taken against the student, I informed him that the student had been out for two days, but I was unsure as to whether that was official or not because I had not gotten a chance to speak with the Dean due to being out (at workman’s comp) Wednesday morning. You interjected and informed us both that he was on a five day suspension and was being 21ed. I told the school police officer that that was what was happening to the student.
3) He gave me some incident numbers I would need for my case, I took down his name and contact information. He left.
Principal gets a whole lot calmer and seems satisfied with this answer.
Friday after school, the Dean bitched me out because she had to deal with the school police Investigator. Apparently the only reason an Investigator comes out following an incident is if someone calls the anonymous tip line. I didn’t even know the anonymous tipline existed, it was created last year after a serious incident at another school. The Dean assumed that I called the tipline and took an exceedingly nasty tone with me about about how “she’s been doing this job for longer than I’ve been teaching”.
Interjection: Reality check. Everyone in that building has been doing some job longer than I’ve been teaching. I’ve only been teaching 1.5 years. Comparing the success of your career to my teaching experience? Rather mediocre.
She refused to believe that I could possibly not know the safety tip line existed. She lectured me and said, in essence, that if I didn’t call it, I knew who did. And since I knew who called the anonymous tipline I should figure it out and tell them to keep it to themselves.
Interjection: Half the school is sick of the kid who assaulted me and half the school knows who did it and what happened because my school is full of gossipy people.
Anyway, she called me a backstabber and made it clear that she remembers when people stab her in the back and question her ability to do her job.
At this point, I’m fundamentally aware that I probably have no disciplinary support for the rest of the year. Furthermore, I will be putting in a transfer request from my school in order to insure that next year, if I stay in Philadelphia, I can start fresh at a new school. I would rather be at another school where I have an opportunity to build relationships than stay in a place where my discipline problems will not be supported in the future because of catty nonsense. I’m still applying to districts in Virginia and West Virginia; I need to get out of this school system before it kills me.
She really wanted me to find out who called the ANONYMOUS tipline that parents, students, and staff members can call when they encounter a problem. Talk about the chill effect on whistleblowers. Sheesh.
