<p>That is really true-- the new division head will be in school in September. Irony of ironies, I am involved in hiring him or her, and we are narrowed down to really good candidates. (Don’t want to talk too much about that-- it’s a small world) So I will know the new division head better than others when s/he comes to school. That reminder actually helps a lot. Thanks, Consolation. You live up to your name! I read this article in the Times last week. Good story.</p>
<p>There has been some excellent advice, and probably nothing I can add. I do want to wish you the best of luck. My father was in a similar situation many years ago. He also was an educator, but in administration, so no union protection. A couple of people with an ax to grind (2 school board members, union pres) got the ball rolling. As in your case, he had decades of great work, and they were trying to hang him on stuff like taking one of his 300 accumulated sick days to take his mother with Alzheimer’s to the dr.</p>
<p>They did not proceed according to his contract (schools seem to be especially good at thsi 
) and litigation ensued. I won’t kid you, it was extremely grueling, long, and expensive, but he won it all.</p>
<p>You sound like a great person who has dedicated her life to education and the kids. He was, and is, likewise. After retirement, he’s spent the last ~15 years working for the same school, on the school board! Best wishes that this all works out for you too.</p>
<p>Oh my - my kids have gone to a private school their entire lives and it sounds like you’re at their former school! The heads of all divisions are stepping down the the head of the school is finally leaving after this year. I should say they’re finally being forced out after years of torturing the teachers and driving the school into the dirt.</p>
<p>I hate to say this, but it’s what I saw them doing to great teachers who didn’t tow their line or whom they declared on the outs for whatever reason. Plus in this economy they could hire a new teacher at a fraction of your cost. However, they did renew your contract so it sounds like you are fine for next year. </p>
<p>Watch for the rumor mill. However, parents are a HUGE resource, especially the full paying ones. Not that you can go to them, but if parents get worried about beloved, long time teachers leaving, they will sit up and notice. Just saying. </p>
<p>Good luck this week getting a handle on it. As a contracted employee I don’t think you can really do anything about not having a contract renewed. It sounds crazy that they’d have you take continuing ed classes in Europe on your dime. There must be a lower cost alternative.</p>
<p>Yes, this too will pass. Remember, challenges make us stronger, even though enduring them is something we would prefer not to have to suffer. Hang in there! Many of my friends who are teachers are exhausted by No Child Left Behind and all the “observations” and “coaching.” Unfortunately, the kids and teachers suffer needlessly in the name of “progress.” You know in your heart of hearts you are an excellent teacher being given a bum rap. Don’t ever lose sight of that.</p>
<p>Oh yea, considerTahiti for an inexpensive place if you want to refresh your French. Quebec in Canada and even bilingual Montreal are other options that are closer than going to Europe.</p>
<p>“I have to do a course of at least two weeks’ duration for professional development (preferably, they said, out of the country-- I teach foreign languages”</p>
<p>Boy, this really sounds like harassment to me. Surely there is a way to refresh language skills in the US, and I really can’t believe you need that at all.</p>
<p>If you get along with a few of your peers, and there is no problem doing so, let them know of your situation. Keeping it all quiet only benefits the management. You may not have a union, but if experienced teachers at this school learn that the management may want to harass them too in order to get them to quit (which is what it sounds like they are doing) they might help you in some way. I’d guess that they are too chicken to fire you and hope you’ll quit.</p>
<p>Pretty soon we will have a nation of novice and imported workers, with experienced workers sitting around wondering what happened.</p>
<p>I wonder if this situation came about, not because of that informal evaluation, but because some noisy, high paying, parent likes to have her way. I worked at a private school and oh boy, some parents use their money to get whatever they want. It was really awful, especially because the Head Master didn’t stick up for his teachers. </p>
<p>I remember one time, an attractive but socially cruel kid was having trouble during recess and I helped him out. He was very athletic, but a really bad sport (this is 3rd grade) and at this incident, he needed to understand what was going on. His mother was always “just around the corner” sneaking around and listening. Just after that, I got an unexpected present (a nice Coach wallet). But another time, when I caught him bullying another kid, she also heard me. Of course I had to tell it like it was, but she didn’t want to hear the truth. I lost my job that year, or rather, I didn’t get my contract renewed. I always got positive evaluations and had some totally grateful parents, but then there were a few who made my job miserable.</p>
<p>You might want to speak to the departing supervisor to get some feedback as to why you needed to go on probation. I can’t imagine it was because of that one class. Did she expect you to do something and you didn’t?</p>
<p>Is the ‘professional development’ required to sharpen your language skills? I ask because my son once had a language teacher who made grammatical mistakes in the language she was teaching. DH caught the errors while helping son with homework. DH ended up writing to the teacher, gently pointing out the errors. Turns out, the woman had been teaching another language for most of her career and was simply rusty in this one.</p>
<p>That said, politics and hiring/firing at some of these private schools are wild. At an elite private elementary-middle school where a friend teaches, 2/3rds of the faculty was fired one summer, most without notice.</p>
<p>My sympathies: it sounds like a really ulcer-inducing situation.</p>
<p>@limabeans: The departing supervisor is most of the problem. For some reason that I can’t figure out she really doesn’t like me and we used to be friends for a long time. I’ve tried to talk to her and to figure out how I’ve hurt her, but to no avail. I am hoping that I can get some kind of mediation when I talk to the principal next week.</p>
<p>@katliamom: I am not really sure where the so-called professional development is aimed. I feel like it’s pedagogical, but, again, there is no real basis in fact here. I have definitely said that I am interested in doing such work, but that it would have been much better received if they had been positive in its suggestion rather than threatening.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone! You are all really helping.</p>
<p>Go to the website of which ever company administers your health insurance plan, look up individual health plans. You will have access to those health plans if something should happen. Call the 800 number and ask about the application process, how long it normally takes, let them know you are on XYZ plan with them already. This would hold you over until you are eligible for Medicare. With 30 years of teaching you can’t be that far off.</p>
<p>Otherwise, does your DH have a job and access to benefits? If you lose your benefits, you can sign up under his plan if there is one.</p>
<p>Then look up Concordia Language Camps. They are full immersion camps for languages. They are somewhat expensive but less so if you don’t need college credit for them. You would easily be able to find what you need there without having to travel outside of the country. The real issue is do you want to? What are the chances you will still have a job this time next year after having spent that money?</p>
<p>@SteveMA: Terrific advice! Husband is a part-time employee of the same school and free lance the other part time. He is under my insurance. I forgot about Concordia-- I am going to look now. The last two questions are the crux…</p>
<p>Franglish,
I’m so sorry you are going thru this. It is difficult to show up for work every day knowing that someone is looking for you to slip. I knew a teacher whose principal would pop into her class frequently, trying to unnerve her.</p>
<p>I’ve worked in a place where one staff member seemed to enjoy having a “target”. It reminded me of the mean girl. Having watched her campaign against many others, I was not surprised when she turned her sight on me. I had been documenting everything, and had a 5 page response when first officially criticized. I had a lawyer review and modify the letter. Fortunately, I was able to leave and avoid the toxic environment.</p>
<p>The fact that you have a new administrator coming in brings some hope. Stay confident and still prepare for the worst.</p>
<p>Concordia had the exact program that (I believe-- at this point who knows if they will agree) fit the bill! Thanks so much for the suggestion.</p>
<p>I am thinking with my (retired) “lawyer” cap on…in the review when you were put on probation, were you given any kind of specific feedback at all? And this was done on the basis of a single, snap evaluation? Your employer would have difficulty defending this in court.</p>
<p>Having unexpected, important observers could unnerve even the best of your students making a presentation, so that they would not show themselves, or you, at the best. And if they were the weakest of your students presenting that day…it would be hard on you trying to make them “show” better.</p>
<p>You should request a specific accounting from your supervisor, or whoever else will be the decider, as to what , exactly, they want you to work on , and how, specifically. you are to be evaluated. Make sure you receive this in writing!</p>
<p>Otherwise you will just be tilting at a moving target.</p>
<p>In the meantime, I would start cataloging all of your, and your students past accomplishments. Make lists showing success in language competitions and advanced placement exams, etc.</p>
<p>I would also start showcasing your work. For example, if your young students are doing reports/writing stories/performing skits in the foreign language, invite their parents to come in and watch them. Invite parents to breakfast or tea with the students speaking only in their foreign language while eating something they have prepared representing French or Spanish culture, etc. It is very hard to get rid of a teacher who is a favorite of the parents!</p>
<p>Also make sure that you showcase yourself! See if you can speak at/present/publish an article/organize something at a professional organization for teachers event. Anything that would show respect for your talents and knowledge in the professional community.</p>
<p>You can make it difficult on them if they have an “agenda” against you. As other posters said, follow every arcane rule, dot your i’s, cross your t’s, and document, document, document!</p>
<p>one additional thought… by making it difficult for them by making them play by the rules, too, it’s going to drag out the process til it will be just about time for you to retire! </p>
<p>Especially if they realize that you will not just go quietly, and that they may face a legal battle (expensive and bad publicity…whether they are perceived of as firing a beloved, long-term teacher, or that they harbored a teacher they suddently consider substandard after 30 years of having said teacher in their classroom!)</p>
<p>A year or two from now, if the vendetta is still going on, you could offer to retire at the earliest date that would ensure you full retirement benefits, in exchange for offering not to sue them for having created a toxic and harrassing work environment. Or ask them to give you severance pay equal to the last year or two of salary until you retire, so they can avoid the cost of litigation. Especially if you can come up with any evidence of a pattern of trying to get rid of senior (older) teachers.</p>
<p>I am sorry if I missed this throughout the thread, and I am going to preface this with it may not be fair, but how are your students doing on any SAT Subject or AP or other standardized testing. My guess is that may be the issue – that you may be a very pleasant person who heretofore has gotten along with everyone. IMVHO, plays, etc are nice, but parents want results these days.</p>
<p>We are a school that does not give AP tests, and very few of our students sit for the language SAT subject tests. My students all do well on their quarterly assessments, and when I have passed these students on to the next level, the teacher (not the department chair) has always said that my students were well prepared for the next level and understood all of the grammar etc. that they needed to move on. At the levels I have been teaching (I, II, III in two languages) students don’t take standardized tests.</p>
<p>Believe me, I am truly racking my brains to try to figure this out. It’s kinda crazy…</p>
<p>IMHO employees are only as good as their current manager wants them to be. You can be a star with one supervisor and conduct yourself in exactly the same way for a new boss and be considered a poor performer.</p>
<p>franglish, do your students participate in the Grand Concours and the national Spanish and/or Latin exams? You might want to look into it…although it may be too late for this year. As a bonus, these provide a nice state and national level honor for students who do well to add to their resume…which helps with college admissions. I would imagine that a teacher who advocated for participating in such programs would be popular with parents. :)</p>
<p>We do the National Latin exam, and it was agreed that we wouldn’t do the French or Spanish exams, although I had thought it would be a good idea.</p>
<p>frangrish, issue could be that the dept head thinks you could be replaced by someone cheaper – like a recent grad. I am not saying that is right, but I am told by my firms employment lawyer that it is OK to discriminate on basis of salary (ie lay off people who are paid more). other issue could be that dept head wants to hire a friend.</p>