The Saga of the Whiteboard Markers
This past Thursday, on Ask a Manager, Allison Green asked readers to respond to the question: What not-so-professional behavior are you proud of and would do again?
This was my reply:
My first teaching job was at a nonpublic alternative school for boys with emotional disabilities. "Nonpublic" is a euphemistic term intended to soften the fact that it is, in fact, a privately owned school; the only difference between a nonpublic and a private school is that, rather than families paying the school's tuition, the student's home district foots the bill. Essentially, these schools exist for students whose needs exceed what can be provided by their public school districts.
In theory, this is perhaps a viable solution to the tiny fraction of kids whose needs--or the risks they pose to other students or staff--are so great that public schools struggle to provide them with their legal right to an education. However, the school where I taught was corrupt as ish. The tuition was $70K per year per kid as a baseline (kids who needed extra services and supports could clear the six-figure mark), but you wouldn't know it from looking at the school. The staff were grossly underpaid (especially given the physical risks to doing the job) and, by the time I left, no one had had a raise in ten years. We were given no budget for supplies and had to practically beg on bended knee for everything we needed. (I once waited three months for a set of ten paperback novels while the director sat on my request in hopes that she might save pennies on the order.) While I was there, the company that owned the school became publicly traded. I remember plain as day sitting in an orientation, as a brand-new hire, where the assistant director for the company walked into a room full of teachers and social workers, most of us working with disadvantaged and predominantly Black kids in Baltimore, and asked brightly, "What is our priority here?" The answer: "Keeping our census up so we can get good returns for the stockholders!" Not our students, not our clients ... the stockholders.
Because of this, I refused to come out of my pocket for any supplies. One time, I needed new whiteboard markers. We were given one set at the beginning of each year, but they bought off-brand, and they only lasted a few months. I went to the master teacher--who was supposed to handle our supply orders (and who, side note, had also never taught a day in her life)--and she passed the buck to another administrator. I talked to that person, who passed the buck elsewhere. I talked to that third person--keep in mind, I'm asking for a pack of whiteboard markers that costs a couple of dollars, given the cheap off-brand crap they'd buy--who passed the buck back to the master teacher.
At this point, I was tired of wasting my time. One of the expectations at the school was to have an objective on the board for each class. As my markers ran out, I could no longer write objectives. At a faculty meeting, the principal mentioned that he'd seen teachers slacking off on writing daily objectives and, oh man, that was the "in" I'd been waiting for. My hand shot in the air, and I said, "I'd gladly write objectives every day, and you know I always do, but no one in the front office is willing to order whiteboard markers for me, and I refuse to pay for them out of pocket. So I haven't had markers for three months now."
He feigned being horrified and like he didn't know this was going on (he did) and promised to "look into it right away." Finally, I was invited into an administrator's office and presented with a pack of ten, beautiful, multicolored whiteboard markers ... and told that I could select three.
This, folks, is one of many reason why for-profit schools are a terrible idea.