"Miss Q," as I will call her, has a disability. It's a visual disability. She's legally blind. It's obvious. Her eyes go in two different directions and she can't look you straight in the eye. Now if she had just been honest with us from day one, I might feel a little differently. She has NEVER told us just how blind she is. As a matter of fact, she has never actually mentioned that she's blind. Obviously, we notice that there is something wrong. I'm sure she assumed that. But if she had just addressed the white elephant in the room from Day 1 and said, "Look, I know it's obvious that I have vision issues, could you guys help me out if you hear the kids are doing anything they shouldn't be in my rooms," I would probably respect her a little more right now.
Her vision issues do contribute to her ability to monitor a classroom. And while I am all for equal opportunity employment, junior high classrooms is NOT the right placement for this disability. Some examples of things that have happened under her "watch": (pun intended)
- A student in her 1st period class was throwing a paper airplane out the window almost every day until another teacher caught him doing it.
- Students in her 2nd period class stuffed the heater full of paper. It started spewing smoke and paper when the boiler was turned on this fall. She had no clue they were doing it.
- Two students in the same 2nd period class were getting up out of their seats and pushing the call button for the office. When the office would call to ask what Miss Q needed, she would tell them she hadn't called. They would then do it again. She had no clue what was going on
- Students in ALL of her classes raise their hands and never get called on when they need help. She will ask the room if there are any more questions and students will raise their hand and WAVE IT around. She says, "Alright, moving on then..." (This has been observed by other classroom teachers.)
These are just a FEW of the things she can't "see" happening in the room.
Other issues stem from her actual instruction of the content. She teaches the WRONG material. Or teaches it incorrectly and then has to reteach it the next day. The kids are lost. The other math teacher is actually pulling 25 of her algebra kids two days a week to review material that she has previously taught so they aren't behind for math next year. I've actually observed her teaching a class where the students are laying their heads down in frustration and shouting out that they don't understand what she's teaching them. She just pushes forward. I had to ask her to postpone her last exam because I had sobbing students in my classroom.
Additionally, she loses papers. Honors students who don't ever have a missing assignment are coming up with "missing work". They are very upset. Some of these kids are so upset that they come to our classes crying. Others have gotten angry. Some have their parents calling the school. Some are even photocopying their homework with parent signatures and dates on it each night so they can either turn that in when she loses it or prove that they've already done it. Now we know that some students are being manipulative and "claiming" that she's lost their work. But many of the kids are telling the truth. They can prove it.
Their parents are pissed. The assistant principal fielded 80 phone calls just last month about her. I'm worried that students are going to revolt and take over the classroom.
Then the bomb dropped: She told us today that she won't be returning next year. Which probably means she's been non-renewed on her contract. The weird part: She told us she might not be finishing THIS year. We're not really sure what this means. Is she quitting early and burning up her sick days? (She has enough to take the whole last quarter of school off.) Or is there something else we don't know? (i.e. She's been asked to resign early because things are SOOOOO bad.)
I hate to say it, but I'm glad she's leaving. I don't wish her any harm and I know in this economy it's hard to find a job, but she's TERRIBLE as a junior high teacher. She's just terrible as a teacher in general. She's living with her parents, so I'm not worried she'll be out on the streets. I just don't think that it was fair to anyone involved this year- students, parents or other teachers.