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I am a mob movie fanatic. I’ve watched all of the classics (to my husband’s dismay), from Godfather, American Gangster to my all-time favorite, Goodfellas. Even though I know how the movies will end, I still get a rush right before the villain is outed and the mob boss brings the harsh retribution. Long after I’ve turned the channel, I still close my eyes and think about how nostalgic it would have been able to work as a cop or reporter during that time- uncovering all of the criminal behaviors that the mob was involved in for cash flow. Even though I have these ridiculous fantasies,  I  thought I took the ‘safe’ way out in school, opting to obtain a history degree and teach in an urban district in the northeast part of America.

Usually,  as I’m sitting in the teacher’s lounge debating on whether to grade more papers or call parents, I have epiphanies about teaching and life in general.  Last week as I was eating my turkey sandwich on rye with Ruffle potato chips,   I had an epiphany that hit me literally like a ton of bricks tied to my feet (no pun intended) as I listened to one of my colleagues bitterly telling us about how he was called into the principal’s office because he had encouraged a parent to challenge the grading policy that allows all children at the school to have the ability to retake exams that they fail (as many times as possible during the semester).

As he continued to   ‘rant and rave’ about the humiliation of being pulled from his class and ostracized by the principal, I realized that I (and many of my co-workers) were characters in a modern-day mob movie produced, directed, and written by the school district.

I know I sound crazy, but hear me out. While the mob is an organization that dabbles in crime, my school system is not far behind in the tactics it engages in to punish the ‘little’ people (teachers and children) and to glorify and reward the district employees that sit in their downtown offices and orchestrate complete chaos at the schools they supposedly serve.

Don’t believe me? Well, just read the four principles that all mob families live by:

A ‘vow of silence’ is demanded by all employees.

In any classic mob movie, the audience knows that it’s a common rule that no one knows anything. Remember in the first Godfather movie when another mob family murders Sonny Corleone (James Caan)? Despite him being murdered and everyone knows who did it, no one says a word to the cops. As a matter of fact, the cops are never even called to investigate his death (as if they really would have with all the criminal behavior he was involved in-but I digress). In the end, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) decides to avenge his brother’s murder on his own.

In my district, we ( administrators and district-level people) do the same. When a scandal occurs (which is often), all district employees are sent an email demanding that we say nothing to the media.  To make matters worse, if we’re really mad about something (take, for instance, our medical insurance premiums increasing by  100%) and we take our grievances to the members of the Board of Education, we are routinely put on the district’s ‘blacklist’.

In this case, a colleague of mine started having breathing issues anytime she was in the building.  She was constantly going back and forth to the doctor until he diagnosed her with asthma and cited her working conditions as the cause of her ailment. When she brought it to our principal that she would have to move classrooms,  he directed her to our Central Office. When she finally got an interview with our Facilities Manager  (after many emails were sent), she asked that they test the school’s air quality. Within two weeks (and without an air quality report being taken), she was reassigned to the worst alternative school in the district.

She could have fought her move, but it would have been futile because others who complained of the same symptoms (shortness of breath, moisture in the air, ‘wet’ smell) all stopped in their tracks and refused to file a formal complaint after seeing what happened to her.  In our district, if we have a problem, we can fill out one of those anonymous complaints, but there have been occasions that what’s shared in those are sent to the principal, and through the process of elimination, the person who wrote it is found out, and all hell breaks loose.

Criminal Behavior is accepted.  

In all movies about the mob, a criminal operation is always in play behind the scenes. In Goodfellas, the men dabbled in stolen goods, while drugs were the revenue-making product in Scarface. While everyone knew something was happening, it was a widely accepted practice by even the most ‘saintly’ characters.  The same happens in public schools, which usually revolve around how federal, state, and local money is spent. We’ve had instances where employees take trips that have nothing to do with education, or even worse, they intentionally misuse funds for their benefit.

In addition, to the financial mishaps occurring,  there will be all types of morally bankrupt and illegal things happening even as I type. There are principals who everyone in the district (heck, the entire city) knows are ineffective shells of leadership, yet they stay in schools due to nepotism.  Almost every two years, we hear of some charter schools that are in trouble for misusing money, and it’s common practice for people downtown to be on the nightly news because they are suspected of taking part in cheating on standardized testing.

Working in this district, it’s amazing that more of the news isn’t broadcast to the public, but we realized a long time ago that only certain schools in the district are targets. For example, two years ago, there were rumors that students were bringing weapons on campus through a broken fence in the back of our building. While we would hear whispers, the kids were pretty tight-lipped about saying names for fear of retaliation.

We all had our suspicions. All of the teachers reported what we had heard, but the administration “chalked” it up to too many teachers watching episodes of The Wire and demanded that we show him proof before he would confront any students. Guess who was caught on campus with a loaded pistol a few months later? Yes, that same student. But because of rule #1, many teachers did not feel comfortable ‘outing’ the principal for not keeping a safe school. Now many of us have decided to lock our doors just to feel safe in the building.

The workers have no say in anything that happens.   

In the movies, we only hear about the mob bosses or their families and rarely hear from the many   ‘workers’  of the family who have little to no say about what happens in the operation. In public schools, it’s not hard to guess that classroom teachers are the ‘workers’ and the bosses work in the Central Office controlling every aspect of the school.  Usually, in mob movies, you see a glimpse of these workers doing the ‘dirty work’, but you never get to know them for who they really are- all eyes are on the boss. The same is similar to how teachers are treated in my district.

While the majority of teachers not only have Bachelor’s degrees, the vast majority of us have advanced degrees that we have toiled over to achieve; however, we are never asked about how our opinion about how the school district should be run. Instead, we generally learn of new policies after they’ve already been drafted, and changing them would be literally an  ‘act of God.’ A few years ago, we were encouraged by our school’s counsel to attend the monthly Board of Education meetings to let our voices be heard on issues, but after going a couple of times, we realized we couldn’t just voice our issues.

Instead, we had to be put on the agenda, and then (if time permitted) we were allowed a few minutes to bring up issues that the board members always elected not to discuss in open session.  Just this year, our state has fully adopted standards, and despite overwhelming issues with the standards,  we’ve been directed that these standards will happen with or without us on board.

The sad part is that we believe our Department of Education and district officials when they make these ‘threats’ on our job. We must remember that our job is just to teach students- everything else is told to us.

If the ‘right’ person dislikes you, it can ruin your job or your career.  

In the movie, The Godfather, Sonny (before his untimely death) doesn’t really care for his sister’s husband. It wasn’t really anything he did (other than killing Sunny later in the movie). He just didn’t care for him and excluded him from all Corleone family business. In public education, this is normal- if the right person dislikes you, your content, or your areas of specialty, then you could very well be looking for a new job or, worse yet, a career. For instance, my mentor, Mr. Sams*; was a thirty veteran in the district and made it a point to break all of the above rules as frequently as possible. We joked that he had a thing for ‘pissing’ the right people off and that it would catch up with him one day.

As part of the district’s move to college and career readiness, someone’s bright idea was to end all vocational at the high school level. So with that decision, all of our woodworking, auto mechanic, and beauty school pathways were cut and instead replaced with pathways dealing with computers (computer programming, engineering, etc.) and engineering. The kids were devastated (rightfully so) and went to Mr. Sams to see if there was anything he could do about it.

They organized a peaceful sit-in at a Board of Education meeting. Nothing happened there, except for the board allowing everyone to air their issues with the shift in classes, but not a week later, Mr. Sams was strongly advised to take his retirement because someone at the Central Office thought he’d be a better fit at another school. Knowing he was too old to fight a move, my mentor retired early and is now substituting at a smaller district, but he does have a potential lawsuit ready to be filed- when he has the money for an attorney.

Ultimately, my job is eerily similar to all of the movies I watch about mobsters. The only difference is that my job is operated by people who are supposed to be in ‘it’ for the kids.  This leads me to this question, is your district similar? Do you feel like you’re working for the mob but in a different state?

*Names of been changed to protect the innocent.

public school

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