Stupid in America

[Moristans]

Alright, well, if not knowing your exact situation precludes me from discussing the topic in general then why bring up your specific situation here at all? Assuming I can at least rationally talk about things I might not have the details on I'll take a shot anyway.

I'm not trying to preclude discussion. Like I said, you're not alone when it comes to deciding about whether or not it's a good idea to summarily dismiss a staff of 350 teachers, administrators, secretaries, cooks, and janitors. That decision was made, no discussion.

Can we at least assume their strategy has worked in multiple schools or they wouldn't be trying this method on new schools?

You would assume so if they want to do it but, unfortunately, it doesn't work the way they intend to do it. Every time it's ever been tried the way they want to do it now, it fails. That's what the data show.

To put some of the issues in context. As a ghetto school, we rarely ever have a full staff. We always have subs, or non certificated teachers filling in. Most of our teachers are new, or newly certificated because we have a 25 to 50% turnover every year. In the last two years, we've replaced all the chemistry teachers. I've bee n on hiring committee after hiring committee. In the 8 years I've been at this school, we've turned over the entire administration twice, and the principal 4 times. So now, in one swoop, they are going to dismiss everybody and replace them with whom?

Anyway, there are any number of other issues. Honestly, if they had told us a year ago that at the end of this year they would reconstitute, and that they had a plan for what the school would look like, with or without our input, then spent this year sharing with us their vision for what the school would look like after reconstitution, I think many of the dedicated teachers would have been on board, just like any of the reforms we have tried in the past.

Instead, we were told in December that, come July, we would be reconstituted with a complete, highly qualified staff and a complete, fully implemented reconstitution plan that the new staff will help design.

Uh huh.