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Despite the fact that everyone present at the meeting had been cc'd on every letter over the prior fourteen months, the principal read verbatim every document. As I asked to speak in my own defense, the district administrator actually yelled at me, stating we were barely into the packet, that the pages were full of indictments. I reminded him that I was under the impression he was to be impartial at this time and that the packet contained more papers that had nothing to do with actual charges than those that did. The reading went on for forty minutes, and the attempted interludes toward my defense seemed to fall on deaf ears. It did not matter that I had twice period-subbed during my prep period for other teachers who were late coming to school, what mattered that I was late four times over two-and-a-half years. It did not matter that two teachers in the social sciences department threw erasers in their classes daily, what matter was that I threw a piece of chalk. It did not matter that another teacher lent his car to students to go off-campus over lunch, it was hearsay and had nothing to do with the fact I let students join me off-campus. It did not matter that when I'd tell a joke in class the most common response I received was they'd already heard it from a teacher in the music department, what mattered was that I told the jokes and wandered away from the curriculum. It did not matter that the time I was caught smoking on campus fourteen months before was done at a time and place where no students were around and hadn't done it since, what mattered was that I had, and the one infraction was mentioned in four of the documents in the packet. It did not matter that I hadn't been alone in a car with a female student in nineteen months, what mattered was that in doing so combined with sharing my personal life with students I had opened up the possibility of rumor. What mattered, though not mentioned in the meeting, was that the year before I taught in Holmen a staff member was terminated for dating a student (three years later they were still together) and that a senior in the high school had at that time been married to a member of the Holmen staff for over a year; what mattered was the district could not be open to more rumor. It did not matter how many students went to their counselors to try to get their schedules changed so they could be in my class. It did not matter how long the lines were of parents waiting to talk with me at parent-teacher conferences. It did not matter that the students and parents who were grateful to have me teach at Holmen had no voice in the matter... or did they? |