Is it worth it?

Sigh.  This is a difficult post to write.  I am frustrated.  Upset.  Tired of the media making Chicago public school teachers out to be the bad guys.  All of us lazy, fighting over money, over-paid babysitters.  I am also tired of the rhetoric.  Karen Lewis you are exhausting.  I know and understand the history of unions, remember, I am a teacher.  However, I do not believe a work stoppage which affects the lives of 300,000 plus children is justified.  I just don't.  That being said, I support my colleagues 100% on their decision to walk the line.  I see amazing people who work harder than anyone I know in any other industry fight for students who sometimes don't have anyone else to fight for them every day.  They show up sick.  Miss weddings and funerals.  Cut time with their own children short for the good of our 16th and central park babies. 

You see, I work with an extraordinary group of teachers.  Most of us started together, in a residency class in 2013.  We were then all chosen to come together at Dvorak School Of Excellence to serve a previously under served group of amazing children.  We have gone from a near level 3 to almost a 1plus.  In 2 years.  And we did it without cheating or messing with data.  It was through pure blood, sweat and tears...and tears.  On any given day, there are more than 3 teacher cars in the lot before 6:30am, this is not including our director of climate and culture who is usually one of first to get there as well.  On teacher preps and lunches you almost always see children with their teachers.  What does that mean?  There is usually little to no break BY CHOICE.  After school there are children in classrooms, on every level - either receiving after school help, or "working" in a teacher classroom who sponsors them for their DC trip, or just waiting with their teacher as their parent has 2 jobs and calls and asks, "Ms. Ohannes can you please keep _______ until 5:30, you see, I just got this new job and...."  Yes.  Of course I will.  Of course most of my other colleagues will.   That is who we are.  We stay ready.  We come in on Saturdays to help each other out, and put felt on the bottom of a teachers entire classroom because with 38 students in a class now, that will be a lot of extra noise with the chairs.  We purchase first aid kits because we have a nurse ONE day a week and use Popsicle sticks when we have to make a makeshift splint because there is no nurse and mom can't get there until 2:30.   We make difficult calls to DCFS and often make sure students get home safely when we know there is no parent to do so.  We teach ALL the students in front of us, even when their IEP requires them to be in a separate learning environment, but CPS has deemed Diverse learners unimportant and so students with severe social and emotional needs stay in the class with the rest of the students, often holding the hand of the teacher while she teaches others to make sure he does not wander.  We write grants for EVERYTHING in hopes that the little money our principal does have can be used for a much needed teaching assistant or computer cart so students can attempt to compete in the 21st century and, in 7th and 8th grade, learn coding by an extraordinary Science teacher who could be in med school anywhere in the country and chooses to serve our children.  We collaborate, between grade levels and help new teachers with basic issues when our admin has to play the role of case manager with little help from the district.   We get paid for 6.25 hours a day, but I don't know a teacher in my school who doesn't work at least 9 hours and many 12-14 hour days.  Oh, and that doesn't include the weekend we spend grading, preparing lesson plans for whole group, small group, differentiating, modifying, collaborating, and buying items for our class.  Yes, we GIVE money to our work place in addition.  

And I don't know anyone I work with who resents it.  You see it is a calling.  But even people who give their lives to service can only take so much abuse.

I am tired.  Tired of a Mayor who doesn't get it and a Union head who just makes people hate us.  

Tired of a city who doesn't see the free and public education that is our students birthright is being taken away, piece by piece.  

Tired of parents who fight us when we call to ask where your student is because it's 9am and school starts at 8:30 and you tell us to chill.  They'll be there.  Got up late.  Again.  

If you are going to have a wheel and break each one of the spokes, one by one, the wheel will eventually deflate.  

I hear all the time, "Carrie, there are other districts that aren't so stressful and need passionate teachers too"  

But if all the teachers like me and my colleagues leave for the burbs, what will become of the children of Chicago?  

Well, you can already see.  It's falling apart.  Teachers are leaving and have been leaving.  When teachers stress an evaluation system more than they stress getting a student to understand theme it is no surprise.  

But in one little corner of the city, in one of the most violent neighborhoods on the west side, I can still make a difference and fight like hell for the 400+ students that grace the doors of Dvorak.  So yes, it is worth it.