Governor Strickland,...help, please?

I really appreciated the comments above regarding future revisions and enhancements to the management, application, and discipline of education across Ohio. However, I am concerned about the operating issues which are presently within our school systems not only due to economy's crunch, but to administrative leadership.  I realize that most leadership styles bring along "force", gentle or too strong, but our schools are being run by superintendents, principals, and assistant principals with act first, ask questions later mentality.  There is so much happening, as of late, that even our leadership, which once had great rapport with its staff is suffering, because of falling into the trap of using grapevine information for its basis of evidence, versus speaking first hand with the people.  I applaud Governor Strickland for taking valuable moments to not hit the grapevine, but going directly to its source.

There is an ugly thing happening in the school systems across the planet, disengagement.  I, personally, am making efforts to help this not occur within the classrooms in which I get to teach, through using multiple learning style activities, projects,stations, and a mixture of independent/group/partner problem-solving experiences.  I am girding this with expectation and rigor, realizing that each student needs a challenge and each student needs a support some place within the lesson.  Now, this plan has been fortified with careful thought, research or creation of materials, and linked with the State Standards.  The crumbling point has been when the administration begins to pick and demoralize its teachers.

Lately, I have a colleague who has taught for a number of years within the educational system. Since, the levy did not pass, she has experienced a subject area change (from econ. to English 9) and undergone a mass amount of degrading evaluations.  She is capable of being a mentor to others, as I have seen her do, (and so have I.)  I believe what she is experiencing is not only a wave from the economy, but a tsunami of power given to the adinistration.  It strikes me hard, being in the middle of my career, of which I love and feel driven to continue to do.  Her experience makes me ask questions... Would you want at the honorable part of your career to face such hardship and lack of recognition?  Do you think that anyone would want to face the pressures of what she daily experiences, in the form of bullying? Would you trade her, your job for hers?  So, I began to think about how the students are disengaging, and wondered,... could it also stem through how a school's leadership conveys its strengths or weaknesses through its staff and students?  My answer would have to be, ABSOLUTELY!  Especially, since the example mentioned above is not just happening to those on the verge of retirement, but from 5 years on!

A more extreme view of this evaluatory and administrative measure is within the school district's procedures for advancement. Imagine that you begin a job, and you would love to buy a house in the district to compliment your family's interest of community involvement within the school district.  You are told you have 3 years of INDIVIDUAL contracts, with multiple evaluations each year, and must get through those to be offered a 5 year contract.  So, you teach..., your first year receiving wonderful evaluations, give presentations to the staff, get sent to conferences.  Then, your second year, it's the same; but your third year, well,you're getting a bit too close to that 5 yr. contract, so you get dinged on an area (not because it's deserved, just groundwork put in place by the administration).  So, you get offered the 5 year contract, the levy has not passed and cuts are to be made.  Although, you have done the time, been respected amongst your colleagues, and are in a year without evaluatory measures; you discover an unreasonable amount of scrutiny, bullying from your admin., and still have hopes to buy that home.  The home and stability begin to move out of the picture, and then, focus becomes a challenge.  Stress at this point engages, and begins to become a crippling agent against that teacher.  You begin to think, ummm..., I must be the only one feeling this way; until you learn, no, there are more like you within your same building.

PLEASE think very carefully about empowering an administration which lacks experience, rapport, demeanor, and desired stability for its staff.  All that, this particular district needed to do to save teacher's jobs was to freeze the pay increase for this coming year, and then, build it into future years.  Sacrifice comes at a cost, and when it's done right, it breathes life, hope, and fresh new beginnings. WE NEED this, right now, not just to engage the students, but to jumpstart the educators who have been weathering these difficult days (student fears for parents, student support to learn, student emotional problems, etc.)The teachers have collaborated with its team of players (parents, counselors, admin.) to hold together what is left of a student, after the student has been thoroughly sifted through (techonological advancements-which are good, just so many happening all at once, world crisis, local crisis, fears generated by normal interactions in a school day, daycare for siblings, arguments of family members trying to sustain, lack of materials, lack of connection, etc.)

Your decision will impact many! Realizing that you can not give every person the desired ice cream flavor that they want, please at least, consider the base.  The foundation and people that hold the keys to a school building need to be connected to what they are unlocking or locking; otherwise, the key won't work no matter how hard you try to turn it.

Thank you for taking a moment to read this comment. The hopes are to continue seeing people engaged in learning or the encouraging of it.

Enjoy today!!