Need Advice, On Paid Leave
Hi internet, I've been hesitating to make this post considering the "investigation" is still underway. However, I feel like the isolation is eating me up. PLEASE if you can, reply. It would be so helpful to get other thoughts and feel human. I am going to try my best to give all the context needed without revealing any sensitive information. Here it goes. It's a lot.
Context: I am a third year high school teacher of color at an almost all white/hispanic public charter school in Arizona. I have been placed on administrative leave since February of this year surrounding allegations concerning "unprofessional conduct."
School environment: For the last three years I have endured, documented, and reported repeated incidents of racism, sexual harassment, misogyny, homophobia, physical aggression, vandalism/destruction of my private property, and many more behavioral incidents in the classroom. The students at this school have called me and other teachers of color at the school racial slurs, they have drawn swastikas on desks, and have made comments about keeping the "motherland" safe from "slaves."
The students at the school have made many disgusting comments toward me as a young woman teacher and have sexually harassed me on multiple occasions in the hallway/in class (cat-calling, making sexual remarks that involve their genitalia––and i even hate mentioning this and it makes me so uncomfortable because these are literally teenage children. My objective is to teach them as a responsible adult in their lives and it deeply disturbs and saddens me to remember the times I have been sexually harassed at that school.)
My teacher friend two years ago had the n word with the hard r carved into their wall. their classroom pet was killed by students and their supplies were stolen/broken. Nothing came of the "investigation," and my friend was eventually forced to resign. Since then, every single Black educator on campus has had the n-word written on their wall or on some other part of campus with their name beside it.
Parents are parents, and each parent is different, but also very similar at times. I try my best to work beside them, used to make regular calls home and have frequent parent-teacher conferences to help their children succeed. Arguably, the amount of parent contact made by the handful of teachers of color at that school was significantly more than anything the white teachers at the school had to do (the hours dedicated by teacher to parent contact have been logged and when i ran the numbers last time, the data is there). Unfortunately, the culture fostered at the school is unfortunately one of permissibility, patriarchy, and racism. The parents have often reinforced their students behavior and bigotry.
In terms of academics, the culture is very much, "have the kids draw on coloring pages and give them an A" type of beat. This is not an exaggeration. The science teachers last year literally would only print our coloring pages or have them do poster projects (i love a good poster project but this was just bad) as curriculum and almost every single student in the class passed with an A. When it came time for the AP test, the pass rate was less than 1 percent. The history teacher has the students simulate themselves bombing countries in the middle east and also making decisions as "slave masters." This has all been reported to no further action. Lastly, the "cool" Bio teacher literally played inappropriate R rated movies and admin said "there are chill teachers, and then there are less popular teachers" VERBATIM. Furthermore, teachers are questioned and called into meetings by admin and HR if a certain percent of students don't have A's.
Okay, that was just some necessary context to understand the environment I am working in. Now, the incident that they are basing this allegation off of happened in Feb of this year. I was walking to class and a group of boys barred me from coming in bc they were upset about some grades I had just posted. A teacher in the hallway stepped in to help me get get in my classroom. A series of usual behavioral issues/disruptions ensued that resulted in emails to the office for documentation (refusing to charge chrome books, sitting in seats not assigned to them, shouting obscenities).
There was one student who has had issues with my class previously that continued to shout and say that I was "targeting them on purpose" to fail them. This student has made fun of my ethnic name, said it sounded ugly, and told me that I speak like "too much like an Indian." In the past they have also been physically aggressive toward me. This has also been reported.
After a series of redirecting the conversation, and getting the class on task, I caught several students cheating, and went to speak with them privately at their desks. They began to say again that I was "singling them out and humiliating them." I am a firmer teacher, but being a student not too long ago and experiencing being humiliated as a young POC in a very conservative environment, I have always made it a point to be reasonable and go up to their desks, which I did. I am also autistic, and sometimes I have a hard time keeping track of my volume/expressions, but given the events of that morning, I was very careful to not escalate anymore. All I wanted was to get them on task and stick to the procedures so that I could keep grading at my desk. Anyways, the students continued to protest, but when we looked at their screens, Mr. Chatgpt was there. I sent them up to the office.
The students left in class were about 10. It's an afternoon class and I only had 14 out of the 32 students to begin with. Did I mention chronic absenteeism is also an aspect of my school that teachers are blamed for? Those 10 students continued to encourage disruptions and remained off task. I was exhausted at that point. I had planned for a purposefully light day since we had just finished an assessment the day before. It was a paragraph response to an open prompt for a 90 minute period. Upon hearing a student call me a "bitch," I went up to the podium and that was the tipping point.
I told them that their behavior was inexcusable and that I would not hold back in holding them accountable. I also reiterated that the racism and misogyny at the school had gotten out of hand (recalled the swastikas and the hate crimes) and that the were complicit in perpetuating it every time they encourage it from their friends. Students continued to laugh. I reminded them that I myself have been physically hit in the classroom from a peer in that period, and even then...more snickering. In that moment, I just did not know what to do, I said that this harassment and BS needed to "fucking stop." I know that cussing was a reallyyyy bad way of handling it. I know teachers are expected to just never cuss or feel emotions or be human people that get tired of being abused daily in their work environment. I am usually very careful with my language and I wish I would have just sat at my desk and called in admin, but I part of my responsibility I felt, was to help them see that they are responsible for creating a safe environment for everyone, everywhere they go. It was getting to a point where my physical safety was at risk and no one was doing anything to help, all admin was doing was shifting the blame onto the only teachers (of color) holding students up to academic standards.
The next day, I was placed on paid leave without warning for allegations surrounding my conduct. They alleged that I was "targeting and singling out students," and that I called everyone a "white supremacist"––completely taking out all of the nuances of the conversation(s) I tried having with them.
I am really not trying to make myself out to be a saint, but this job has been the most hostile environment I have ever been a part of. The turnover rate at this site is literally like 1/3 of the teachers quitting each year. I went into the profession to be the teacher I needed for myself when I was their age and put my whole heart into it, but the harassment and racial violence has really worn me down. I am isolated now even more. No news from the "investigation" in over 3 months. The whole situation makes me feel so awful. I didn't get to see my students off to take their state testing or AP exams, I didn't get to say goodbye to the seniors I taught last year, to my teacher friends. My union is unresponsive and says I shouldn't "push" for a decision. I feel like there is nothing else I can do.