Why I'm leaving Baltimore City Public Schools
Today was my last day as a sixth grade science teacher at West Baltimore Middle School. It's a day of introspection, because as ecstatic as I am that I'm finished with the hardest job I ever had, I also will miss some aspects of the job, such as the feeling of accomplishment I got when a kid finally, after 700 tries, got something I was trying to teach. I'll also miss my two favorite students ever. I gave them both my address in case they wanted to write letters, but I didn't get their contact info, because a teacher sending you unsolicited letters is just creepy. So hopefully they'll write. That would be nice.
This is the letter I attached to my "Exit Interview" form that I had to fill out because I won't be a teacher next year. My principal was already angry because he saw my exit interview form. I thoroughly enjoyed that, because he is a complete (fill in any expletive you find useful). He's the worst boss I ever worked for. I think he'll be even more angry when he sees this letter that I sent to human resources.
Basically, the exit interview form consists of a series of questions asking why you're leaving the school system. Question 2 asks: "Reason for Leaving" and then there are three boxes to check: "Another Job," "Salary Enhancement," and "Enhanced benefits." And that's it! As if these are the only reasons one could consider leaving Baltimore City Public Schools! All one has to do is peruse Dave's (Linden's?) TFA Chronicles to know better than that...
Anyway, I was told when I showed it to some teachers, that it was dead-on and I should send it to the Baltimore Sun, Mayor O'Malley, the School System Superintendent, etc... So here's what I wrote, it gives a pretty good picture of why I'll be starting an OK Samurai Killa Bees faction in Pittsburgh next year. Just for information, IST means department head, if a student has an IEP it means he or she is a special education student, inclusion is the policy where special education students are mainstreamed in the regualr ed. clasroom, and BCPSS stands for Baltimore City Public Schools...
Exit Interview Questionnaire - Additional Comments
Michael Ferenczy - West Baltimore Middle School #80
I want to make it clear that my decision to leave Baltimore City Schools was not influenced by the possibility of a better job, salary advancement or enhanced benefits. It appears by question number 2 that the district thinks those are the only possible reasons for leaving. My decision to leave was based entirely on my experiences in the Baltimore City Public School System. I would have left the system after this year even if I didn't have another job at all.
I came to the BCPSS through Teach for America. I wanted to educate children in an under-funded school system. Before I started teaching, I thought I would be one of the few teachers who cared about student achievement, that most of the teachers in the district were burned out or never cared in the first place. What I found was a staff full of energetic, committed, and enthusiastic teachers, who brave the idiocy of BCPSS to try to reach children who have already been failed by a system that either does not care about the students, or is too incompetent to educate them.
When I came to the BCPSS, I had no idea that there would be such bungling management. Despite the best efforts of teachers, our endeavors to educate children are thwarted at every turn by inept administrators, lack of discipline caused by poor policies, and a complete lack of parental involvement or support.
In two years at West Baltimore Middle School I have been observed in my classroom five times. Four of these observations were formal observations by my vice-principal. Once in two years, my IST observed my class for half of a period, then left, with no constructive criticism. Through conversations with colleagues, I have learned that this is the way first-year teachers are treated throughout the system. There is no support for any teachers, even for the inexperienced teachers who need the most help. It's surprising that any first-year teachers decide to stay.
In addition, my principal is a verbally abusive boss. He regularly comes on the intercom to scream at teachers who have displeased him. For example, he called unnamed teachers "cowards" and said that they "don't care about children" on the full-school intercom because someone called the union. He berates staff in front of other staff members and students, and has cursed at students. One look at the daily staff memos "From the Principal's Desk" would be enough to understand the constant negativity of our principal. Despite all this, however, I haven't been completely unhappy with my principal, because he keeps the school in some semblance of order, and I have heard horror stories of far worse principals. It is a sad testament to a school system that I have considered myself lucky to have a man like him as my boss.
But no principal can keep order in a school system where children are allowed to act as they please, with few consequences. I have been assaulted by five students in two years, all the result of trying to keep them from assaulting other students. Two girls punched me repeatedly in the back, and they each received four days of "separation." During my second week as a teacher two boys punched me in the head, broke my glasses, and left me with a headache. They were each suspended three days, and not a single administrator asked whether I was ok or not. A different boy punched me in the crotch because, he said, "(I) shouldn't have gotten in the way." The boy he claimed he was trying to hit was ten feet behind me. I was the second teacher he assaulted. He had punched a female teacher in the jaw earlier in the year, and said the same thing to her. When WBMS tried to expel him, the school district sent him back. This year, I saw him hitting a girl in the hallway, and I told him he shouldn't hit people. He told me, "Why not? I hit you last year and you didn't do anything." The district has obviously sent a clear message to him, and to countless other students that assault, even of teachers, will go unpunished. This is not an anomaly. I know at least five teachers who have been assaulted in the past year. If the district continues to ignore teacher safety, there will be a multimillion-dollar lawsuit from a teacher's family when someone is injured badly enough.
And violence against teachers is only the tip of the iceberg. Good teachers with good classroom management are lucky to spend only 25% of their class time on behavior. Students cannot learn in the environment caused by the school systems policies, no matter how hard the teachers try to educate them.
IEP students deserve special mention because they have been given a free pass to do whatever they want. A student asked this year, "How did he pass?" Another student replied, "He's got one of those IEPs." I asked him if he knew what that meant. He said, "Yeah, it means that if his parents want him to pass, he gets to pass." This mentality has destroyed the inclusion model. The students know that they will be passed through no matter what, and that they can get away with any misbehavior. The noble intent and theoretical advantages of the inclusion system have been lost because of the lack of accountability of students for their behavior.
And it isn't only IEP students who are simply shuffled through the system. I have been told countless times, that a student won't do any work because "I didn't do anything last year and I still passed." The district has claimed that social promotion is a thing of the past, but it is actually a thing of the here and now. A student who missed 100 days this year is passing because of the district's ludicrous policy of passing anyone who failed once before. The damage that these policies are doing to children make me sick to my stomach.
I am leaving the Baltimore City Public School System because I can no longer force myself to be a part of a monetarily and morally bankrupt system that destroys children's potential, fails to educate them, and then tries to appear as if it's "making progress." It makes me sick to come to work every day and watch what happens to a group of children who started off the school year so eager to learn and so well-behaved. As they learned that the district didn't care about their education, and as they learned that they could get away with virtually everything short of murder, they lost their enthusiasm and entered a state of indifference. So, it is because my conscience can no longer allow me to be a part of this terrible school system, and because my soul cannot bear to see the destruction of so many more young lives, and for no other reason, that I am leaving Baltimore City Public Schools.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My principal only saw the first part of the questionaire, he hasn't even seen this letter yet, and he was already angry. I sent this letter to human resources, because I didn't want to deal with him exploding on my last say when I wanted to hang out with the five kids who have been coming to school the last week. Anyway, this letter may seem negative, but my two years have not been all bad. I think I positively affected quite a few young lives, and I know I was a memorable teacher for several of my students. I got a proficient (the highest rating) on my end of the year teacher evaluation by my vice-principal, which was one of my goals for the year. I just hope someone has the guts and power to come in an change the BCPSS, because the children deserve better...
Friday, June 25 at 12:43 PM
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