“You need a kick in the ass.”
November of 2020, we bought a house. An administrator, Mr. A, encouraged me to take some days off to recollect myself. But the condition was that I had to be “over” it. I scheduled for two days off concurrently with when we moved into our new house. He didn’t quite understand grief and the complications I’d been experiencing since August.
My husband and I threw ourselves into extensive house improvement projects. At school, with persistence from Mr. A, I began a newscast for the morning announcements. It kept me busy. After the hysteroscopy, my HCG levels returned back to zero. I could start trying anytime I wanted to start again. Though, I wanted to wait a few months for the “perfect” delivery time in a teacher’s school year.
In 2021, I had begun reading Holes by Louis Sachar in our ELA curriculum. While it is one of my favorite books, there are some sensitive topics within the secondary plot of Katherine Barlow. She fell in love with Sam, one of the only black men in town. During this time, different races weren’t allowed to be together. One day, white men hunted him down and fatally shot him as he tried to escape. That was the turning point of Kissin’ Kate Barlow’s plot.
The year prior, George Floyd’s death and Black Lives Matter highlighted the disparity between people of color and their white counterparts. Our School Adjustment Counselor (SAC) and Mr. A offered guidance at the start of the school year. Since I was mentoring my grade-level partner and had many black students in class, I reached out a month prior to the lesson via email. I felt comfortable with delivering the lesson; however, I wanted to see if there was other guidance and to support my grade-level partner as much as possible.
We didn’t get a response from Mr. A. Our SAC reached out to offer support for students. Due to the lack of response from Mr. A, my colleague and I spent a few days crafting a plan.
The day before the lesson, I had taken a half day for an OB appointment. It was March and still teaching online. Though, the plan was to transition back to in-person instruction. A very trusted Instructional Aide (IA) covered my class, and I wasn’t able to reconvene with her about the progress she had made with my students. My attention was focused on supporting my black students and attending to my own needs as much as possible.
The next day, I entered our Google Classroom link to see my students. The plan was for the SAC to join in during my delivery of the lesson. During a break before the lesson was scheduled, my colleague had messaged me. Mr. A, who failed to respond for that entire month, showed up in my colleague’s classroom at the start of the day. He had changed the entire lesson that we had planned. As a grade-level team, you strive to have consistency in various facets to ensure a quality education. Also, building a new teacher’s confidence is incredibly important. My colleague ended up doing a great job regardless, but it was the principle of the matter. So was it unprofessional of the administrator? Yes, I believe so. While it deeply bothered me, I was willing to drop it.
During my portion of the lesson, everything went well. I noticed other adults observing the lesson on Google Classroom which was normal. They stayed on after the lesson and watched the next lesson too which was writing. We were focusing on narrative writings and pulling out story elements from Greek Myths. My IA and I had spent years prior to COVID co-teaching. We had it down. It was natural and proved to be very effective for students.
Mr. A reached out to schedule a time to meet virtually. As we met, he had mentioned that the IA shouldn’t be co-teaching with me, and I should’ve planned more. We ended the meeting.
At this point in my life, I had enough of people walking all over me. People in my wedding, people at my previous school, and people at my current job. So, I requested for another meeting. It was the next day. The administrator and I discussed things more in depth. I explained my reasoning. And he flatly said, “you need a kick in the ass.” I nervously laughed it off and abruptly ended the conversation.
I need a kick in the ass? Every single teacher suffered throughout COVID with online teaching. We tried everything possible to deliver high-quality instruction. We all did this with a smile and put in the, already extensive, hours outside the classroom. I tried to run a newscast virtually, and I was trying my best to be at least half the mentor that I had.
I emailed to meet with the whole admin team. If I genuinely needed a “kick in the ass,” I would like to know how to improve. Behind the scenes, I cried a lot. I love teaching and doing right by people. One thing that I don’t do is cry in front of people.
At the virtual meeting, it was only Mr. A and the curriculum specialist, Mrs. B. I asked if they thought that I needed “a kick in the ass” and if so, why and how can I fix it. Pretty immediately, Mr. A shut down by crouching in his seat, threw a hoodie over his head, crossed his arms, and didn’t say a word. Mrs. B was shocked and confused. She communicated that this wasn’t an agreed upon term, nor did they think that at all. I asked that if that particular phrasing were to continue, then I would appreciate professional language to be used instead.
I left the meeting feeling like I had finally advocated for myself.
Unfortunately, there was animosity from both administrators. Mr. A got to Mr. F pretty quickly. Instead of the biggest concern being if I felt supported, it was whether I’d go to the union or not. Once, I was a respected educator at school. Now, I had fallen from grace due to establishing a boundary. There wasn’t anything that I could do. Most of my colleagues knew that I wouldn’t lie. Admin, now, thought otherwise.
Dear Rosita 