Friday 23 January 2004

Another week over and another week with a positive attitude, despite having to deal with three crises at school. It seems I stir up controversy even in the best of schools... but how the administration handles things makes all the difference in the world.

Crisis number one was in handling an insane parent. The day I was hired Beth warned me that I'd more than likely have an issue with her, that she has a reputation in the area of causing trouble at every school. The Academy was the fifth in which she had enrolled her daughters; the prior four asked that they never return... they're good kids, but the schools didn't want to have to deal with the mom. Some might consider the administration telling me this as gossip, but I haven't taught any other place where I'd received such a heads-up about trouble on the horizon.

Sure enough, the parent showed up at school early last week. Apparently, whenever said parent thought there might be difficulties with her daughters in school, she would show up to attend their classes. My first week there was also the same first week for two other teachers hired (one for literature and one for Spanish), and the parent came in to check us out.

I had a few spare minutes that day while my students were working on a skills test, and I spoke with her about my goals in the class and where I wanted to be by the end of the school year. The parent took copious notes throughout my entire class, then went on with her daughter to the next.

When I wrote above that this parent is insane, that was the opinion of Jody and Beth, not me. I basically ignored her for all but the two minutes I gave her and did my job without missing a beat. However I learned afterward that during her visit she'd yelled at her daughter's classmates during one class and at the teacher of another, that this was not the first time this had happened there, and that she sat with Jody and Beth for two hours after school bitching about everything under the roof of the school.

The boss ladies drafted a letter stating that although the girls were welcome to attend the school, the parent would never be allowed to enter without an attorney. Jody and Beth know the quality of education our students receive would be diminshed with further parental interference or disruption. The mom withdrew her children from their fifth school this week; at least her kids weren't kicked out of this one... just her.

Technically, I didn't cause any trouble, I just had to briefly handle it. It was the girls' dad that called to inform the school that their daughters were no longer attending. He said they were placed in the public school and that the one I had taught was behind the other kids in her class in math. The mom, the insane one, called another parent at school to bad-mouth our school's performance in teaching math... Jody and Beth let the second parent know about the things I've already started to change and the direction I'm heading. They have complete confidence in my abilities, and that's why I was hired.