UGOTNERVE received this article and we know that we have experienced this first hand in Henrico County Public Schools. TEACHERS ARE TERRIFIED to speak out, go against the grain, criticize administration, and more importantly, stand up for our children.
The school board members should be asking themselves a very critical question. What does it say about a learning community that promotes an atmosphere of fear, intimidation, and hopelessness within its adults to the point that they would rather remain silent about abuse, neglect, and noncompliance as it relates to children just so they can keep their jobs and not be harassed by this district’s leaders?
- These teachers FEAR being “blacklisted”, never to be promoted or recognized for their abilities.
- These teachers FEAR questioning the illegal and noncompliant directives of superiors, even though they know that children will suffer if they carry them out.
- They FEAR being “targeted” by bullying administrators that would rather “silence” them than “solve” the problem.
- They FEAR being “emotionally and mentally abused” by administrators with the school board’s blessing.
- They FEAR being “excluded and singled out” as “trouble makers” or not being “team players” by other staff members that are “going along to get along”, even though they know that things are VERY wrong regarding our children.
- They FEAR having their “character” destroyed by the lies of administrators. They even FEAR having their own students used against them as a form of retaliation by heartless administrators that would not think twice about misusing the innocence of a child for their own purpose.
- Most importantly, they FEAR loosing the right to live out their life-long passion of educating our children because they made a man (or woman) mad when they criticized or exposed how they were hurting our children.
What kind of school board, county, and community would promote that type of atmosphere?
How can we free our children from the jails of fear when we cannot even free ourselves?
Sounds like Iraq, China, or Russia to us……..change MUST come, the survival and freedom of our children depends on it!
KEEP UP THE NERVE!
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Are teachers afraid to speak up?
If letter writer Stacie Brooks (“School District 1 in severe need,” April 14) had “a close relative” working as a teacher in Yuma Elementary District 1, why did she learn about these “resource” problems only recently and in conjunction with that relative leaving their job in the district?
Was that teacher afraid to speak out while still working? And, why was that teacher’s name not given? Is he or she afraid that they will not be hire-able elsewhere? Also, if “teachers are doing their best,” as Brooks suggests, why is the newspaper not flooded with letters, not from relatives or parents, but from the teachers themselves?
Could it be that all these hundreds of so-called “teachers” are taking their paychecks home and “just going along to get along?”
For years I have been calling for a public teacher’s forum, and have even offered a free place to have one, and yet no such forum ever materializes. Why? Is it because teachers know all too well that when they do speak out and criticize what goes on in their schools they will be publicly accused of criminal behavior and hounded from their jobs by those who, if they were actively investigated by the police, the county attorney and the press, would be found to be themselves indictable?
In conclusion, if there are so few teachers who have the requisite courage and are willing to speak out, isn’t it sheer emptiness, and an invitation to a just contempt, for the majority to continue to teach that it is wrong “to go along just to get along?”
JAY CLARK
Yuma
