Over my time as a teacher, I’ve learned that it’s best to set the bar so low that you’ll never actually be disappointed.  But this is the US education system.  No matter how low you set that bar, you will always be disappointed.  When we found out what our new admin team was going to look like, I made sure my bar was set low enough that no matter what was accomplished, I would be not let down.  But hoooo boy was that bar set too high.  The best way I can describe this year was that it was a hurricane of bees.  The clouds? Bees. The rain? Bees.  The wind? Bees.  

So what mayhem did the hurricane of bees provide most recently?  Tenure decisions and teachers being excessed.  In one day, at least one teacher found out that they were granted tenure.  That should be a cause of celebration in its own right.  Applying for tenure in 2019 is the equivalent of proving that you’re not a witch in 17th century Massachusetts.  But then we find out that two teachers are being excessed.  One of them was an ATR (for all you NYC peeps) and the other has been in the system for over 10 years.  The yin and the yang in this portal to hell swings so fast and so fierce that most people don’t know if they’re coming or going.

To make matters worse, we’re losing a dean and not replacing them.  This dean in particular is staying in the building, but going back to the classroom full time.  I’ve been in this school for 5 years and this dean was been in his position for all of them.  Needless to say, this transition is going to go over as smoothly as fucking a bag of fire.  Not just our school, but the DOE as a whole has struggled recently with discipline.  It has been noted that suspension rates are different depending on race so therefore there has been several attempts to make it more fair.  As a result, the ability to discipline students for the various shit they pull as been cut off at the knees.  For example, recently there has been a new agreement with the NYPD and DOE, which limits what students can be arrested for.  By limiting what students can get in trouble for and the number of people that can police the school, can you see what I’m getting at?

Anyhoo, excessed teachers and less people to help keep students in line should keep staff morale in the shitter.  Whatever, 2 more days.