No, put THAT one THERE!! (continued)
by John Pearson
I was fortunate enough to remain at my school. However, I did have to change positions. I am no longer teaching math and science; I am not even teaching the kids I had for the first eight weeks of school. Instead, I am now part of the third grade Dual Language program, teaching students who receive half of their instruction every day in English and half in Spanish. Thankfully, I'm responsible for the English half.
Last Monday was like starting the school year over anew. I had a brand new partner, who had moved up from teaching second grade. I had 40 brand new kids, all needing to learn my rules and procedures. Also, I had a brand new subject to teach. I'm still teaching math, but now I also teach English Language Arts, which I've never taught before.
The Adventure continues! Now I can only hope that my district doesn't make any more mistakes that affect our school year.
Oh wait, I just read that they fired too many people and now they have posted job openings for 60 positions.
Kids, this is why it's important to learn your math...
John Pearson is a third-grade math and science teacher in Dallas, Texas. He has degrees in mechanical engineering from Duke University and Texas A&M, so most consider his math abilities adequate enough to teach nine-year olds. He is also the author of Learn Me Good (Lulu, 2006), a funny, fictionalized account of his first year in education. Read more at www.learnmegood.com
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Posted by Rose Garrett on Oct 31, 2008 4:32 pm
I'm a Dallas taxpayer, and a DISD mother of 2. The educators and administration while having gone through a stressful time have been wonderful about continuing their focus on educating the kids. I'm also a small business owner and familiar with the stress that our country is going through with these tough economic times. If things don't pick up, I'll may be forced to lay off employees myself, if the income isn't coming in you've got to do something or go in the red.
I don't think the administration did this on purpose, as you've stated they wanted to do the right thing to begin with by lowering class sizes and overcrowding. Many new schools came on-line with the completion of construction from the last bond issue, some teachers were willing to re-locate, some refused. The students didn't have that choice, so the district had to hire more people to staff these new facilities.
I think it is a case where financial information suffered a critical breakdown between the accounting department and the human resources department, each of which had their responsibilities and "territories" staked out.
I go back again to the State of Texas, which is sitting on a ginormous reserve of taxpayer money - why? Well, they'd tell you it's for "just in case", well "just in case" is here if they are not funding the teachers it takes to achieve excellence. Some might yell about more money going to the district, but I'd bet there's a lot of teachers that would agree that for the period of time the district did have those additional teachers, things were looking up.
Mr. Pearson, thank you for teaching our children, you certainly don't get the recognition you deserve.
Posted by Amy S on Oct 31, 2008 5:16 pm
On top of that, he says the district used three different financial systems (one for payroll, one for accounting, I forget the third) and they didn't work with each other. He doesn't seem to have made it any kind of priority to get that fixed in the three years he's been here, either; apparently it was more important to rename all the assistant-superintendent positions.
That said, I'm glad Mr. Teacher at least stayed in the same school, where his former students can come say "hi" sometimes and know he didn't fall off the face of the earth. That helps!
Posted by Andrea on Oct 31, 2008 9:12 pm
It's easy to say accounting is straightforward, just as it's easy to say a teacher can teach any subject to any students, but we both know that's not true. So many other factors go into success, and for many years our disctrict operated under an old, outdated system of patronage and budget cuts. Whenever "non-essential" personnel were cut, you could count on those changes to hit the accounting department. Cut enough, and promote enough undertrained people, and you get insufficient oversight and fraud. This was what WE, the district gave to him to work with, he did not come in and make these changes.
He is the easy one to blame, the politically expedient one to blame by several who are either up for election, or who don't want this mess landing on their doorstep. As I said previously, the "CFO" reported to the BOARD the same information that he gave to the superintendent - it is not the place for him to call for a committee to investigate, it's the school boards.
I'm very sad, because this has turned into something against a talented and hard working man, someone who a year ago was held up as being an inspiration to the growth and improvement of the district. He thought he was doing the right thing hiring all the extra teachers - and I think so too, he was unfortunately told we could afford them when we couldn't.
I do not for one moment think he is sleeping easily these days, he too was once a teacher and he has a deep moral background. Please think before you repeat what you've been fed by the press.
Posted by Amy S on Oct 31, 2008 10:08 pm
Amy and Andrea, thank you very much for your kind words in regards to my teaching. I don't know whether Hinojosa's mistakes were mere oversights or blantant neglect, but either way, it put everybody in a really nasty position.
But like you said, we all have to put the kids first and try to do what's in their best interests to the best of our abilities.
Posted by John Pearson on Nov 3, 2008 6:01 pm
Posted by jas0025 on Nov 11, 2008 1:57 pm