What Happened to Our Jobs, San Diego Unified?
Well, it is the day after San Diego Unified started school and here I am with no job to speak of. Last weekend a few of us “jobless” got together to complain. I mentioned how something must have gone wrong between our credential program and the district because NO ONE had gotten hired over the summer by San Diego Unified. It is odd because our credential program with San Diego State was in a “partnership” with San Diego Unified.
The only people to get jobs in the district were given contracts back in February when our program and the district set up early interviews with student teachers at San Diego State. The interviews were meant to get us pre-approved to work in the district. A few people were also offered contracts. A contract meant that they would be guaranteed a teaching job in the district if they sign it. All of this was because of the small shortage of teachers San Diego Unified had in the beginning of the last school year and they did not want a repeat.
In May, our block leader told us that the district got in a lot of trouble for doing that. In fact, the main people in charge of putting it together were fired. That was all we were told. My guess is the Teachers Union got word of all this and deemed in violation of something. You see, like I have explained before, there is a priority/hierarchy system of hiring. Basically, student teachers/newly credentialed teachers are at the bottom and do not get considered for jobs or hired until all other teachers have been.
So, last weekend, I mentioned my thoughts about something going wrong and one of the girls turns to me and says rather matter-of-fact like, “Yeah, something did happen.” That is when she explained that the early interviewing back in February screwed us over. Apparently, everyone was fired and not just the top people. So everyone that had interviewed us and sent us approval emails had been let go. On top of that the district implemented a new job application website to apply to the district. None of our interviews/information had been transferred into this new system. In fact, our information went “missing” altogether. When contacting Human Resources they claimed to have no idea about the interviews...
Basically, the district purposely lost our interviews and information from February because they made a HUGE mistake and the Union found out. However, our program was never told this and our block leader never mentioned it. Luckily, in late July, someone had posted on our Facebook group, that they had been recently instructed to apply to the online job pool because it was new. I believe most everyone did. But at that time it was late July and by the 1st week of August there were no more jobs.
So much for a partnership with the district we all student taught in. I could made plans to move back home and find a job up North. But stupid me, I believed there really was a teacher shortage in San Diego. Now, we wait for a teaching job that may never come this year. Our last hope is that within the month enrollment numbers will require new classes to be made and more jobs to open up.










