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OhBudPowellWhereArtThou · Joined: 02 Jun 2015 Posts: 1168 Location: Since 2003

The problem exists not only in the public schools. Private schools have problems too. Administrators expect teachers to uphold policy, yet when they do, in many cases, administration does the math and realizes that the problem will go away if they side with the parents.

I taught in a private high school for several years. This was not inner city. These brats--- uh, kids--- came from super wealthy families. Many of the kids drove Mercedes and Audis and BMWs. They had their own parking spots. My parking spot was marked GUESTS, and I got a lot of ribbing from students for driving a not-so-expensive car.

One kid came to first period late every day. He was a senior. His reason was that his mother had to take his brother to another school first and he lived several miles away from the school.

Okay. I could see it. His parents were divorced. The school offered no bus service, and city bus service in the city was spotty. I cut the kid some slack.

One morning before class, I stood outside drinking my coffee before class, and the kid comes driving up in a late model Lexis.

--- So your brother has the day off and your Mom let you take the car?

"No. That's my car."

--- When did you get it?

"Sophomore year."

Long story short: he was late every day because his mother was not home to wake him up to go to school. I had given up on the principal and the vice principal as total flakes by that time, so I went to his counselor to find out how I could get this kid to get to straighten up. (I was accountable for absent students until I reported their absence or tardiness to the office. I had a ten minute window to get the roll sheet in to the office, and these spoiled little jerks did everything to slow down the roll call. Worse, when I did complete the roll call, I could trust no one in the class to actually deliver it to the office. (Another story).

I approached the school's Dean of Discipline. (Can you believe it? Dean of Discipline. Sounds like a novel by Pat Conroy). He put me off. He didn't want to talk about it.

Okay. I went to the kid's counselor. When I sat down in his office, the guy panicked. He told me that he'd talk to me in the library during lunch, but I'd have to make it quick.

In the library, the guy said that he wasn't allowed to talk to teachers about students. (That blew my mind). I gave him the lowdown on that one student and a couple of others who needed a swift kick immediately.
That wasn't very effective.

Strangely, what DID get me into the Dean of Discipline's office was a complaint about ME. For years, I had kept a tape recorder on inside my leather book bag. That was my protection against lies about what went on in class. There were no such questions and no one knew about it until I turned my back one day. One kid rummaged through my bag to get my grade book and found the tape recorder. This jerk had the audacity to turn off the recorder AND steal my grade book, then complain to the DoD that I was recording the class.

The DoD tried to write a formal reprimand on me for the recorder. (There was absolutely NO policy against my recording my own comments in class). Then I told him that nobody was getting grades for that semester because my grade book had been stolen from my bag. I didn't act too concerned about it, and cut the meeting short. Three days later, I found my grade book in the class trash can. The attendance log had been ripped out, and grades had been changed. The Dean of Dopiness said that the kid's father was a very wealthy owner of an insurance firm. That was the explanation and the excuse. I told him that the reason why I arrived at school an hour early every effing morning was because I wasn't a wealthy owner of an insurance firm. I don't think he quite got it.

At the end of the semester, I gave everyone an A and turned in my resignation. That was my last year of teaching secondary level in the U.S..

Never again.