Transfer Me Outta Here! - School #17

Last week I found myself in a small transfer school that's located in a closed and decrepit Catholic school.  The school has a student population of 165 but the school's lucky if 50% of them attend.  Like all transfer schools the students have academic, behavioral, attendance, and family problems that resulted in them being "kicked out" of their previous school.  In fact, one girl told me this was her sixth school and this was her last chance. 

The Principal is your typical "Leadership Academy" graduate and requires the teachers to do lesson and unit planning and large amount of data mining.  The teachers have little time for anything else. As a "push in teacher" I saw first hand what stress the teachers experience daily with these transfer students.  The students are disinterested, distracting, and disrespectful.  Many of the students are consistantly using their cellphones, playing music, sleeping, or simply ignoring the teacher as he tries to teach a lesson to no avail.  Teaching with this student body is a disaster.

There is no teacher room or bathroom key as the bathroom is in the basement next to the cafeteria that doubles as a gym.  Furthermore, the non-profit provides guidance counselors and some of them look as old as the students they service.  Parking is difficult on Wednesday and Friday and one teacher parked almost a mile away!  The main office treated me with indifference and made me feel like an intruder but that's the life of a traveling ATR.

Thank goodness I don't work there and would actually think of retireing if I did.

GRADE "F"