f:\doc\web\2000\07\dearborn.txt At 03:21 PM 7/6/00 -0700, you wrote: >open school? Sh***t. My niece goes there, she says >"ya, and we run a mile all the time". I'm afraid to >investigate further... For me, Dearborn Park is THE symbol of everything that's wrong with education. When I bump into substitutes who have been there, most tell me it's still a nice school, though I hear occasional complaints about the principal. But it used to be even nicer - in my mind, it looms like a fantasy. After the new principal - Evelyn Fairchild - came on board, our wonderful PE teacher left the district (because she was so disgusted with Fairchild). Fairchild and the "evil computer room lady," Romona Crilly, then kicked me out, in the sleaziest manner you can imagine. (It's documented on my website.) Crilly had tormented the librarian the year before I arrived. I never could figure out what it was all about, until Crilly revealed her true colors. We had a wonderful first-year teacher who all the teachers loved. At the end of the school year, she wasn't told whether she had a job to come back to next fall. She taught summer school at Dearborn Park and STILL wasn't told what was going on. She didn't get hired back. Instead, they replaced her with another teacher who was a nicer person but was really screwed up in the head and kind of obnoxious. She had been a middle teacher until one of Stanford's favorite principals (Marella Griffin - the one who flunked out of Meany Middle School, then got promoted into central administration) tore into her, rendering her a basket case. The full story about this teacher's recruitment didn't hit me until Ramona Crilly had a conference with me one day. She asked me if I could take over some of the new teacher's duties, as she was having a nervous breakdown! During the conversation, she revealed some things that took a couple seconds to sink in, but they absolutely stunned me. I asked, "You mean, you KNEW she had these mental problems when you hired her?" Crilly looked extremely embarrassed as she said, "Yes." I then learned that they were friends. Crilly had flushed a wonderful first-year teacher out of the district so she could hire a derelict! That's why I say all this stuff about getting rid of teacher seniority is a bunch of baloney. It actually makes it easier for principals and teachers to hire their friends, relatitves and lovers. (Although, in this particular case, it was the younger teacher who got burned.) The kicker was getting phone calls from Dearborn Park students telling me the latest bad news - their horrible new PE teacher, the parents Fairchild kicked out of the school, etc. - and begging me to come back. It really hurt, and it still hurts to this day. Then I got a phone call from some moron teacher - a bigwig with the Seattle Educators Caucus - who criticized me for criticizing Fairchild on my website. She told me that Fairchild invited her to her home for dinner once, and she was a very nice hostess. She never even worked with Fairchild! Some of my favorite Dearborn Park kids will be in 5th grade next year, and I'd love to spend one more year there. But I'd have to lynch Fairchild before I could even go back and visit. What a pig. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Never lose a file again. Protect yourself from accidental deletes, overwrites, and viruses with @Backup. Try @Backup it's easy, it's safe, and it's FREE! Click here to receive 300 MyPoints just for trying @Backup. http://click.egroups.com/1/6349/5/_/8573/_/962923267/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ open school? Sh***t. My niece goes there, she says "ya, and we run a mile all the time". I'm afraid to investigate further... o: wa-ed-deform@egroups.com From: David Blomstrom Date sent: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 22:54:14 -0700 Send reply to: wa-ed-deform@egroups.com Subject: Re: [wa-ed-deform] Bond Woes & STW [ Double-click this line for list subscription options ] At 09:47 AM 7/6/00 -0700, you wrote: One of the scary prospects of reforming funding for new construction/remodel projects is the plan to use these funds to build "model schools." These schools look little like the spaces teachers need. They contain very small classrooms with new spaces created for "community agencies" and clusters forcing teachers out of their classrooms and into open meeting rooms that become multi-purpose zones to compensate for the lack of classrooms. The focus is on the teacher becoming the guide on the side rather than the sage on the stage. I hadn't heard about the inclusion meeting rooms for "community agencies," but it sounds perfectly logical. When I was attending meetings held by a group rebelling against Rainier Beach High School's derelict principal, I heard some news that made my jaw drop. Some of the group were visiting Seattle Schools headquarters when district spokesman Bill Southern took them aside and told them about the district's latest world-class idea. They were going to install a public relations agent in Rainier Beach High School - and eventually in every school in the district! I was equally stunned by the idea and by the fact that Southern would think these people would be stupid enough to perceive this as a good idea. I haven't heard a peep about this bold new plan in the media or from teachers. However, I recently reported on the district's new program to "support" schools, which motivated them to hire people with three or four new job titles I've never heard of. I was "privileged" to see some of the early warning signs at Dearborn Park Elementary School when John Stanford was driving our district into the ground. He quickly walked through the school one day, shaking a few hands and saying a mechanical, "Thanks for all you do for kids." He later returned with an entourage of PIGS - media reporters and corporate types who walked behind Stanford with their heads practically stuck you-know-where. Dearborn Park is an open concept school, and I was appalled when Stanford began speaking in the centrally located library, with cameras whirring and boobs in three-pice suits watching in admiration. I don't know if teachers dismissed their classes or if kids just bolted to see the freak show, but the rails upstairs were lined with students gawking at the proceedings. Stanford visited Dearborn Park yet another time and was photographed for one of the sleaziest articles I've ever read. It appeared in Forbes and praised Stanford while criticizing teachers, whose salaries had increased 22% in a few years. I complained to Forbes, the Seattle School Board and the teachers union for this monumental lie. The union told me the school board did send a letter to Forbes calling them on the inaccuracies in the article. I got a copy of the letter, which only criticized Forbes for portraying the relationship between the administration and teachers union as adversarial! I'm beginning to veer off on a tangent, but Stanford was nothing more than a corporate public relations gimmick who symbolized the utter sell-out of just about every institution that ought to be defending the community - school boards, teachers unions, the media, legislators, Republicans, Democrats, you name it. s Thomas Jefferson said, it's time to MAKE another country - before all our classrooms are filled with Microsoft software sales agents and Windermere real estate agents. target="_blank" href="http://click.egroups.com/1/6375/5/_/8573/_/962906064/" I really don't know much about him. Some of the kids just told me he was mean. They may have been making an unfair comparison with the former PE teacher, who was very well liked, and/or maybe they were comparing him to me, formerly the only man at Dearborn Park. If I remember correctly, the former PE teacher was trying to get a good replacement for the school, but Evelyn Fairchild went out and picked one of her favorites; but don't quote me on that. I forgot to add that, after I was given the boot, the "evil computer room lady," Ramona Crilly, apparently went after the librarian again and got rid of her. I think she was a full-time librarian, but was half-time her last year or two, or she was replaced by a half-time libriarian. At the "Job Fair" a few days ago, there was an opening for an Instructional Assistant at Dearborn Park. I wondered if the woman who replaced me left, or if they added another position. The number of students have increased dramatically, forcing them to put portables on the playground. They just kept nibbling the school to death in a hundred different ways. I loved all the kids, but my favorites were some kids that lived in the neighborhood whose parents were Chinese immigrants. God, they were wonderful kids. They used to beg me for stamps so they could write letters to me. I played with them at recess all the time and gave them little treats - Hello Kitty stickers, bendable pencils, etc. They reminded me of my cousins out on the farm when I was growing up in that they were tickled pink by the tiniest gift. After I got kicked out, they called me on the phone, begging me to "come back and visit." I finally explained that I couldn't visit the school, but I'd come visit them if it was OK with their parents. I got invited over several times. I got to chaperone the kids on a picnic one day when their parents had to work, and I had a couple water balloon fights with them. I networked with a parent who the principal had kicked out. He used to take these kids on trips with his kids, and he said he'd invite me along on some trips over the summer. But I think he had some misfortune and may have even moved away, leaving the kids I used to visit with virtually no adults to take them places. They didn't call me for quite a while until one girl called me this last school year. She had been moved to a portable and she seemed to think she was being singled out because of her academic performance. She asked, "Does it mean I'm dumb?" She called me several times, obviously very distrought, and it was also obvious that no one at the school was offering her parents any advice. She was in fourth grade, which means she also got hit over the head with the WASL. When she was a first grader, she thought that I had "promised" to come back and visit after I came back, which really made me feel guilty; almost as if I had abandoned my family. Kids know when adults care about them and when they don't, and Evelyn Fairchild is too busy attending Association of Black Administrators meetings to even spend any time at school.