Today, in the middle of my 10th period English class, two ceiling titles disintigrated into crumbs and fell on a kid in the back row.
He brushed flakes of ceiling off his shoulder, happy the large chunks to his left had just missed him.
Without a phone in my classroom, I dialed my school's office with my personal cell phone. I was put on hold. Eventually, I hung up, and tried again, and someone finally was sent up to my classroom.
The leak coming from above had been reported a few times before, but it had never been fixed. The building is very old and the problems are many. At least I didn't have a pipe burst in the middle of class, as happened to a colleague down the hall on Thursday.
I often hear about state allotment per pupil, and how the city gets more than its fair share for its students, that it's mismanagement that keeps my class sizes at around 35 and no textbooks in my students' hands. I don't buy it at all. I don't know the last time a new school was built in the city, but I'm sure it's been a while. The BCPSS has to do deal with terrible old buildings and can only afford band-aids to fix them. There's no money or room to build better facilities. And it sucks.
A Poem For Sunday
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“2047 Grace Street” by Christian Wiman: But the world is more often refuge
than evidence, comfort and covert for the flinching will, rather than the
sharp ...
7 minutes ago
7 comments:
To be fair, the system does pour a bunch of money into renovating buildings, but they can't do more than one or two at a time. So many buildings get the band-aid treatment while others get complete renovation.
But it's sort of like the job my grandfather had, as a painter in a hospital complex. By the time he'd finished the last building, the first one was once again in need of paint. He never ran out of stuff to paint.
It's more than just an issue of by the time you finish everything, it's time to start over. I was on the facilities utilization committee, and we were told that there is over $2 billion in deferred maintenance, or stuff that should have been done but hasn't. Whether this is a legacy of under-funding in the past or mismanagement in the past really doesn't matter: the kids, and teachers, deserve better.
The problem is that most of the money is being poured into the bureaucracy that we call North Avenue.
Jesus bro, i stumble upon this blog and i feel taken over by garbage. Do you love yourself and your cause this much? I am a teacher too, in a large urban school in baltimore city as well, theres lots of us here, i just feel that you do a disservice to us all by talking high and mighty about yourself, your low pay roll, and the time you were broke after your "unexpected trip to Italy." Teach because you want to- not because you have secret ambitions to write a sequel to Amazing Grace. I certainly had an epiphany in Baltimore today, theres a righteous one amongst us. I have no idea where you teach, but find a damn supply closet, it has staplers, thumb tacks, and everything else in it. I think about the difference were making too man, its good, its awesome that we are teachers, but come on man, your making us look like were in it for some glory.
Anon #2: Hmmm. I guess I disagree that I talk high and mighty about myself. But if you think I teach for the glory of it, from this measly little blog, then that's pretty silly. I love teaching and even a cursory look-through of these pages should show you this.
At this point, I'm blogging mostly to show problems like this in schools in urban America, to expose it in a way. If that's richeous, so be it.
And there's no supply closet where I am.
With all DUE respect, you have not a clue what you are talking about when you denigrate EB. Since I do not know you, I will refrain from casting similar aspersions on your character, commitment, or ability as a teacher. If he ever leaves, the Black Hole that is the BCPSS will lose one of the few remaining points of light. At this point I think I will take Thumper's Dad's advice and leave it at that.
-The Chaplain
Anon #1 - even if every person were laid off at North Ave., there would still not be the money to fix everything that needs to be fixed in terms of facilties (and who would coordinate the fixing if there was no one at North Ave?).
Yes, money is wasted (as it is in most bureaucracies), but I am tired of that being used as an excuse for underfunding.
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