I stand outside my classroom door with a smile and a greeting as my students enter the room. I see some straighten up their posture and others pull off their hoods when they cross the threshold. I am reminded of how far we have come together. We have shared laughter and tears, triumphs and failures. I have learned so much from this eighth grade class, and have faith that they will carry these experiences with them as they move on to high school.
A note I received from one of my 7th grade students this year.
I too will keep the lessons close to my heart, but it won’t be as a Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) teacher. I have lost faith in my employer and will be searching for a new outlet to put these experiences to use.
I have been a teacher in the MMSD for 16 years; my emphasis for those years has been on closing the pervasive achievement gap. During that time, I have been a leader at all levels — classroom, team, school, union, and district. As a leader, I have always put the children first. After all, they are what brought me to this profession and to the Madison Metropolitan School District.
Getting to know my students means sharing who I am.
My choice to leave is tied to my love for the students. I am leaving this district, because I cannot serve the children I love in the current climate. I have never seen a building as deeply in crisis as Sherman Middle School, yet my cries for help went unanswered for three years. I saw “Band Aid” fixes and many more promises. I saw a principal being given chance after chance and three years of her being coddled and coached with no substantive change.
The problems being ignored by our district are of great magnitude. I cannot understand the purpose or priorities of any organization that allows this level of incompetence, particularly one that is supposed to serve children.
Visibility and Availability
We have a principal who is not visible in the halls or classrooms. There are many days when our building has been in crisis or there are special events and she has arrived late, left early, or not been present at all. It is clear that she is not aware of what is going on at Sherman — either that or she does not care to be a part of it. Staff and students alike notice this indifference. Without a visible leader, our environment has become unpredictable and chaotic.
For example, in one incident, the police had to search our building before school hours. Teachers were instructed the night before not to come in early, so that this search could be conducted without interference. In schools, it is the administration who collaborates with and oversees any incidents requiring police intervention.
The morning of the search, the teachers arrived shortly before the students. When we opened the school doors and entered the hallway, the students’ locker doors all remained agape. This appearance was shocking to staff and students alike. It was no wonder the students felt violated, and the open locker doors caused a stir. Had the principal arrived to school ahead of the students and staff, she could have made sure that the school was returned its normal state, or at least been able to foreshadow or respond to the students’ distress. However, she was nowhere to be found. It was another one of those mornings when she arrived after the start of the school day.
On another occasion, our Positive Behavior Support Coach asked to go home sick. He was told he could not and that the building was short staffed. Later in the day, this same staff member was rushed to the hospital after breaking up a fight. This was not the first time he was injured in such a manner, but this time it put him out on medical leave for the remainder of the school year. And where was our leader? Nobody seemed to know; she had left at noon.
The asbestos (according to the custodial crew) tiles on my classroom floor were in this state from December 6th through the school year.
Even when there was administrative “presence” in the building, this presence lingered behind a closed door. Knocking on that door led to snide remarks or a quick response to “make an appointment,” even though her calendar always appeared to be full — each box pre-filled as “busy” leaving no space for appointments and adding to the lack of transparency.
Sometimes when that door opened, it was not open in earnest. For example, on a particularly volatile day, there was a commotion in the school office. One staff member had his hands full, because some high school students had stopped by to engage in a fight with some of the middle schoolers. Another staff member was struggling to deal with a student who was swearing, yelling, and causing quite a scene. The principal was in her office with the door closed. At one point, her door cracked open and she peeked out into the mayhem. Though the situation was far from being under control, she quietly closed her door again without saying a word.
It is no wonder that the Sherman Middle School climate has declined since she took over as principal three years ago — despite staff efforts to hold things together.
Nobody seemed to be steering the ship.
Things I’ve Never Thought I’d Hear a Principal Say When Approached by Staff
An outsider may wonder at this point whether or not staff had gone to this principal and expressed their concerns. The answer is not so simple. Individuals did not always feel comfortable approaching the principal. Those who did approach were never sure what they would get, but sometimes they got comments like:
“I was TOLD to keep my door open, so I guess I am available.”
“Don’t you have someplace to be?”
“If you are knocking on this door, the building had better be on fire.”
“It’s not just about YOU.”
“You always need something.”
or her dismissive statement of, “Oh, that again…”
Other times nothing was said directly, but the eyerolls did not go unnoticed.
Not only were staff disrespected and their needs unmet, but they also felt that they were blamed or deemed selfish when they tried to advocate for themselves.
AVID Equity Recognition, June 2018
Being a union representative, I had a steady stream of staff members in my room unloading their frustrations — many times in tears. I brought forward people’s concerns at a monthly meeting with the principal. This was meant to be a collaborative problem solving process, but it was not effective. While she listened to concerns and sometimes made promises, follow through fell short. For example, staff wanted her to visit classrooms more regularly. The next day, she would walk into a few classrooms, be seen, and move on. She didn’t interact much with the staff or students while there and was generally consumed with her cell phone, but she could check that off her list. Two days later, it would be back to business as usual behind closed doors.
When it was clear that collaborating with her was not having a lasting impact, I turned to the staff at the teachers’ union. On at least three occasions, the teachers’ union reached out formally to her supervisors and outlined the concerns. They did this many more times informally, but none of this made a lasting impact on her leadership.
My students on a field trip to a college campus.
Lack of Feedback and Follow Through
The MMSD prides itself on using data to drive decision making. They also claim to value collaboration. But when it comes down to practice, schools like Sherman fall short.
For the past three years, teachers at Sherman have not received adequate feedback, even when on an evaluation year. They have spent hours uploading educator effectiveness artifacts only to have faced missed observations, canceled meetings, and no feedback from the principal, who is assigned to oversee their professional growth.
Staff has also spent many Sunday nights filling out and turning in cumbersome lesson planning documents without ever hearing from the principal about whether or not they were on the right track. Many had doubts that she ever opened these documents.
Grant applications were filled out by staff, carefully abiding by deadlines, only to find out later that they weren’t submitted by administration. This means that students lost out on opportunities for innovative technology and experiences.
Agendas for meetings, such as grade level, leadership, or staff trainings frequently came with only a few hours notice, so that staff could not adequately prepare for the work to be done. As a result, very little got done by these teams.
Each school in the MMSD has a Site Based Leadership Team (SBLT) that is charged with professional development for the staff and overseeing the school’s improvement plan. I was a member of the SBLT along with many of my colleagues. However, under the direction of our principal, that team became a place to check off the appropriate boxes and maintain only the appearance of collaborative decision making. Not only did very little get done, but the team was also not informed about the work that was being done elsewhere and how decisions were being made. The SBLT was just as surprised as the rest of the school when training was planned, restructuring happened, allocation was shifted, or a class was discontinued. Decisions were made behind closed doors by a select few and the rationale for those decisions was rarely shared with staff.
All of this has left teachers feeling disheartened, neglected, and disempowered.
Student Behavior
I love my students. They are the reason I became a teacher and the reason I got up and came to work each day. I connect with them, have rapport with them, and care about them more than anyone can know… other than the students themselves that is; they are very perceptive.
Four years ago, I approached implementation of the district’s Behavior Education Plan (BEP) with a mixture of trepidation and hope. The goal of the BEP was to increase the time students spent in the classroom by replacing punitive, disciplinary actions with restorative practices. At the time, Sherman was under strong leadership and it seemed like we would continue to thrive.
The plan looked good on paper, but as MMSD Board of Education member Dean Loumos stated, “It is not the paper that bothers me — it’s the practice.”
When a school is properly staffed, under strong leadership, and clear on its message and mission, policies like the BEP are more successful. If you talked about the BEP to Sherman staff four years ago, they would have said they didn’t notice a huge shift in behavior that first year. In fact, very little changed, because Sherman was already doing a lot of the work outlined in the plan.
Today’s staff would paint a completely different picture. Students can swear at teachers, use hate language, talk about blowing up the school, walk out of classrooms, or hit a peer. They would take a quick break out of the classroom and be back to start all over again exhibiting the same behaviors five to ten minutes later. Noticing a lack of meaningful response by the behavior team, other students were quick to follow suit.
View of the front of Sherman Middle School.
What I saw students learning at Sherman under the way our new administration interpreted the BEP was a lack of accountability. I am a huge advocate of true restorative practices, but I did not see this happening with conviction. Restorative practices, if they happened at all, were empty actions — done incorrectly or without intentionality.
For example, one day I was in my room doing some planning and a student entered in a huff. He was upset and had walked out of a “restorative” circle process led by a member of our behavior response team.
I took this opportunity to tell him a story about a time that I had been upset and stormed off the mats at Jiu Jitsu. I opened myself up to him and told him exactly how I felt when I made the decision to walk back out onto the mats in front of my teammates. I was embarrassed and insecure, but I did it anyway. I asked him if he knew why I even bothered taking that leap and going back. He answered, “because you are strong, because you aren’t a quitter.”
And then what he did surprised me. He said, “Now, I have to go back into that room. Will you please come with me?”
I set my work aside and told him “of course.”
We walked to the room and were met by what I can only describe as chaos. There was a circle of chairs, but very little else about this situation was restorative. Some students sat in the chairs, others hovered over the group sitting on desks; still others moved around the room, not truly engaging in the process. Turn taking wasn’t happening, rather the students were yelling over one another, cursing loudly and battling for their chance to be heard. Some quieter students sat, hanging their heads, with sullen looks on their faces.
My student glanced up at me and said, “Can you see why I left?”
And I did. I saw it very clearly.
With discipline removed and no true restoration happening, our climate quickly degraded over the course of three years.
Students have pushed staff, broken multiple panes of glass in the windows and doors, and brought weapons and drugs to school. The hallways have been filled to the brim with yelling, swearing, pushing, and shoving. Students walked out of class on a regular basis or asked outright to be taken to “room 120”, which was meant to be the restorative center, where they would catch a quick nap, hang out, or talk to the staff who supervised the room, but restoration and followup did not happen.
How could it happen when there was not enough staff to do the work and the staff available in the room were not given the training or power to implement this type of work? The staff in the room were not the ones making the decisions about what should happen to the students, how harm should be repaired, or when they should go back to class.
The staff who were trained in restorative practices were running around putting out fires. The “restorative center” was used a holding tank, not because of the personnel, but because of the dysfunctional system.
What were the students learning from this? And how would it transfer to the world? They knew there were no boundaries, no limits, no reparation of harm, and no consequences.
On those rare occasions when there were consequences, they would be given “off the cuff” — inconsistently and inappropriately implemented.
It wasn’t unusual to hear students curse at teachers. In fact, sometimes it would happen right in front of administration and it was ignored. So, a student got a huge surprise one day when she chose to curse directly at the principal. Yes, the student was being loud and disrespectful, but what came next was unexpected.
A Special Education Assistant (SEA) was radioed. Note that this is not the appropriate staff for this type of behavior response, but our people resources were frequently misused. When this SEA responded, he was told that he needed to physically escort the student out of the building. To make matters worse, this student did not have her cell phone; it was in the office, because it had been taken earlier that day. She was physically removed and locked out of the building without a phone — staff members were uncertain of what to do as the student cried hysterically and banged on the doors to get back in. Several staff reported this event to the union, because they were worried about the student’s safety. Though the union submitted witness statements to the principal’s supervisors and much of this scene happened on camera, nothing happened.
The door to our Spanish room has been in disrepair throughout this school year.
A Staff Stretched to its Breaking Point
Walking the halls that final year, I saw a once lively and inspired staff looking up with deadened eyes and forced smiles. On a regular basis, I saw staff hold it together for the kids, only to cry later behind closed doors.
Sherman became a place where teaching positions were difficult to fill and substitute teachers avoided.
I have been told by subs in our district that they used to pick up jobs at Sherman, but they will no longer do so. This is evidenced by the number of sub jobs that went unfilled this year. Sherman staff was asked to fill in for the absence of others on almost a daily basis.
In April, I had pneumonia, so could not avoid calling in sick. The first day of my absence, my classroom of students went unsupervised for two periods when class coverage could not be found.
Our unfilled Spanish teacher position had to be filled by substitutes, but this long-term sub job turned over four times in the school year, and in fourth quarter was left unfilled. Again, existing staff were asked to step up and cover.
With a lack of follow through, a staff that was being stretched thin, and an absence of administrative presence, the students started to build habits that could harm their future. This scared and saddened me. I watched students who were learning and growing in my classroom step out into the hallway or into another room and immediately change. Their language and very posture would be different. The culture of my classroom remained separate from the rest of the building and my students knew it. I found that the safe bubble that existed in my classroom was not enough to protect them from the environment in other areas of our school.
Note left by students who were left unsupervised.
The Bigger Picture
I could not fulfill my career’s mission of closing the achievement gap without taking best practices school wide. And I could not take meaningful teaching strategies school wide in an environment where learning is not prioritized and there is no follow through from leadership.
Madison claims to have a vision for all students — “that they will not only graduate, but graduate with the skills and abilities to be successful in college, career and community. “
This mission cannot become reality with schools in chaos, absent leaders, and an unwillingness to respond meaningfully to feedback. Something needs to change.
Friday, I stood outside my classroom door greeting students for the last time — my broken heart satiated only by the knowledge that I have touched many students’ lives over the past sixteen years. I know my journey as a teacher is not over, as I am a teacher through and through.
However, it is because of my own competency and educational philosophy that I close the door on a failing system and look forward to opening the next door on my journey.
End of the year Thank You cards from my students.
Addendum
This is just the story of one teacher at one school. There are stories like mine throughout the school district.
At the time that I finished this blog, 23 vacancies had been posted for positions at Sherman Middle School for the 2018-2019 school year, and at least three more teachers were in the process of applying for a transfer. This is out of a total staff of 67. LetterToFamiliesRegardingVacancies
Yet, the MMSD’s response is still to coach her further. The following letter was sent out to staff on June 10th outlining what she will work on for next year. Principal Letter June 10, 2018
There is a fear of speaking out that stems from distrust of administration and out of protectiveness over our public schools. If we speak against the school district and tell the truth, isn’t that going to make our schools look bad? Teachers are the guardians of our public schools, which puts us in a difficult situation.
Things cannot get better without support from our families and our communities. In a system where teachers’ voices are silenced and power favors administration, it is time to take action. Follow the lead of the parents who wrote this letter: ShermanParentLetter_5.30.2018.
It is imperative that we break the shroud of silence that is suffocating the teaching profession. Teachers have been too quiet for too long.
If you agree, write the MMSD Board of Education at board@madison.k12.wi.us
