I'm vindicated!

[ginlindzey]

You'd have to look back a couple of years in the blog to read about the nightmare that happened at my former middle school, Porter, when the new administration let discipline go to hell and I desperately pleaded with the district to do something. I ended up breaking up a gang fight in a girls restroom (rather traumatic), wrote a lengthy email that I sent to district officials that I had already been in proper communication with plus copied that to the superintendent and school board. The principal hijacked my evaluation, marked me down in 6 areas, & screwed me over in numerous ways. My thanks for being concerned about the safety and welfare about students, colleagues and self.

She was awarded a brand new middle school to open this year. However, this has just appeared on the district website:

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Administrative Changes Announced at Two Austin Middle Schools - Statement from Dr. Paul Cruz, Associate Superintendent for Middle Schools
Printable View

December 21, 2007 - Today I advised the faculty and staff of Garcia Middle School that their Principal, Ms. Judy Szilagyi, will leave the campus at the end of this semester, to accept another position with the Austin School District. Ms. Szilagyi is an experienced elementary and middle school principal, and her work to help launch the District's newest middle school campus last August is to be commended.

Also today I met with the faculty and staff of Fulmore Middle School, and advised them that their Principal, Lucio Calzada, will leave their campus at the end of this semester, to become Garcia's interim principal for the remainder of this academic year. Dr. Carol McKenzie, an experienced middle school principal who has served the Austin School District in the past, will become interim Principal at Fulmore.
***

It's all I can do to resist writing the superintendent and saying ABOUT TIME--NOW, HOW ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE IT UP TO ALL THE FAITHFUL TEACHERS YOU SCREWED OVER WHILE SUPPORTING THIS WOMAN?

I know, I know, let it go, Ginny. Let it go....

Comments

Re: My 2nd reply to this

[ginlindzey.livejournal.com]

Defamation is the issuance of a false statement about another person, which causes that person to suffer harm.

Slander involves the making of defamatory statements by a transitory (non-fixed) representation, usually an oral (spoken) representation.

Libel involves the making of defamatory statements in a fixed or medium, such as a magazine or newspaper.

* Copying text from the AISD website about her removal is not a false statement.* I am not writing to cause her harm; I wrote what I wrote because teachers need to learn to stand up for themselves and not to be totally walked all over. I stood up, took the consequences, but was proven right in the end.

I wonder how many teachers leave the profession because of physical or emotional abuse from students and administration. You know what you're told? Don't break up fights. Don't break up fights because you, the teacher, could be the one that's injured. They follow this with examples from previous jobs--the person that had to have back surgery from being shoved into a locker, etc etc. But on the other hand, if you can save a kid from a brutal beating, aren't you obligated to do so as the parent in loco? If it had been your kid, wouldn't you have wanted me to do that?

I have documentation that the School Safety Act was violated at my school. I have documentation that I followed the proper chain of command in a professional way through the district. No one has ever disagreed with that. However, the violations were allowed to continue. If blogging about it isn't professional, so be it. But I will not be blackmailed into silence like other teachers. I care too deeply about the teaching profession and about teaching students.

At a time when we have Columbine and Va Tech and other school shootings in our country, I find teachers are left in a curious position. We are supposed to speak up regarding what we see as dangerous situations to prevent such shootings. BUT, you would have me say nothing about dangerous situations. I guess it's all ok because no one was killed at my school. Frankly, that was just luck that year.

BTW, saying she hijacked my evaluation is perfectly accurate. I had a copy of my evaluation from my original evaluator. I had wisely photocopied it for my files. It was the draft and changes were to be made to take into account the professional work I had done for the year and the quia.com related materials I had developed for my students. My evaluator had said that those areas would go up.

The principal did indeed hijack my evaluation--something the teacher's union said was illegal. She wrote me down in areas that I could PROVE were incorrect (and did prove). I was not allowed to appeal to my original evaluator regarding anything. No one else had a change of evaluator. The principal had never even observed me teaching. But, after I broke up the gang fight and appealed yet again to the district to address the safety issues on our campus, she came after me. I didn't gossip about it, I didn't go to the papers, AND I also did NOT leave my school responsibilities like half our faculty, taking sick days right and left to avoid the dangers and chaos of our campus. At a time when there were never enough substitutes to cover classes, I didn't shirk my responsibilities. I showed up at school, even though any place but my own room frightened me. PROFESSIONAL.

FWIW, all previous and subsequent evaluations by other administrators have been glowing.

But I guess it is ok for an administrator to abuse her position of power, eh? Or at least let's not talk about it because it's unprofessional. Kind of like when it was ok for husbands to beat their wives because it was a family matter? And family matters should be kept quiet?

And do you wonder why more people do not go into teaching? Or do you wonder why there really aren't more Columbine's?

and a month later

[ginlindzey.livejournal.com]

We are reading _Animal Farm_ in English class right now. We will be reading _Night_ after it. In both, there is a theme of not speaking up until it is too late--that nothing can be done. Rules are violated or broken and everyone cowers in fear and won't speak up. In Animal Farm, it is, of course, when the pigs are changing the rules and eventually become tyrants over their fellow animals, pushing them to longer hours for less food, etc. In Night at the beginning it's when no one speaks up in the beginning when different groups are being rounded up. And then it's that particular person's turn and it's too late to fight.

And, yes, I guess I'm still defensive about all this, and was made to think about it again today when I ran into another former colleague who was also glad and relieved to hear about this principal's removal. But most people didn't speak up because their jobs depended upon it and they didn't want to make things worse or ruin their employability. How like those animals on Animal Farm we are sometimes! Certainly those that hide behind anonymity, who won't speak up, who won't even see that the emperor not only does not have new clothes but is stark naked, will continue to be that way. And I shouldn't be surprised or comment. I shouldn't. But I do.

Maybe with me it's a bit of post traumatic stress from the gang fight even still.... whatever