While the math department is far from ideal, the fact that you label the school as an “unteachable” place is a little depressing. I’m a current student, considering a career in education, and I personally think that I would not mind teaching at Bronx Science in the future. Just not the math department. The others look decent to me.

It is continually seen and thought, I admit from my friends and I, that the math department is the weakest major subject Department in school in terms of administration, teaching, and overall cohesiveness. Students are failing Calculus and Geometry left and right, and the new teachers receive barely any guidance from the administration. The Math Intel Class is clearly the weakest to the point I know people have have received 90+ averages for extremely basic and non-intel level projects.

And then there’s the entire Jahoda thing. If I’m sitting in a math class, and I know of all this drama between teachers and administration, the mind definitely wanders. The fact that this information is so out there, that no result has been reached, and that the problem has festered definitely catches the attention of many students.

Math teachers’ complaint adds up to arbitration

By Kate Pastor

When kids fight, they’re sent to the principal’s office. When teachers fight with principals, they’re off to arbitration.

The next meeting set up to resolve a special complaint filed with the Department of Education by the United Federation of Teachers in May 2008, and signed by 20 out of the 22 teachers in the math department, is set for Wednesday, Oct. 14.

Special complaints are made by the UFT when members are “intimidated” or “harassed” at work and the principal or other supervisor has failed to adequately address the situation, according to article 23 of the teacher’s contract posted on the UFT Web site.

A letter that was the basis of the complaint accuses Rosemarie Jahoda, the assistant principal overseeing the Mathematics Department, of intimidating, yelling at and verbally abusing teachers, while discouraging union activity. The letter was posted online by a former student.

According to the UFT, special complaints go through fact-finding, nonbinding arbitration. Arbitrators then hear both sides and recommend a settlement, which can be accepted or rejected by the city’s school chancellor once it is sent to his office.

Ms. Jahoda unfairly requires untenured teachers to supply lesson plans in advance, insists upon unusual grading systems and clamps down on new teachers, according to the contents of the letter.

More than a year has passed since that complaint was filed, and in the time it has taken the Department of Education to make a decision on it, some teachers say administrators are further harassing the letter’s signers, who are then leaving in droves.

Over the past two academic years, about half the teachers who left the school were from the math department, according to numbers provided by Principal Valerie Reidy. However, she said, while 20 teachers left the school last spring and 14 left the year before, those numbers do not differ much from years past. Additionally, she said, teachers in the math department tend to be older than in other departments. Several of them retired, she said.

“The mobility of the workforce has increased. Certainly that is what’s happening at Bronx Science,” she said.

Joan Alexander is one of those retirees. Though she says her decision to leave had nothing to do with Ms. Jahoda, the math teacher was a 32-year veteran at the school and says it is on a downward plunge.

“ … The last two years were so horrendous and so heart-wrenching to the senior staff that it was just a nightmare to be there,” Ms. Alexander said.

She said she and other senior teachers were concerned for younger teachers who, Ms. Alexander says, the new leadership tends push around in particular.

Retaliation?

She herself got her first “U,” or unsatisfactory rating for attendance, as she prepared to leave the school after more than three decades. Ms. Alexander said she felt it was in retaliation against her for signing the complaint.

“I never thought I would get a U,” she said, admitting that she had taken more than 10 sick days, which is enough to lead to such a rating, but that she had legitimate medical reasons for doing so and the unfavorable rating is given at the principal’s discretion.

She is fighting the blemish on her record and said the “polarized” environment she left was starkly different from the one she had come to love over the decades. She remembers teachers vying to stay at the school, not scrambling to leave.

“I had 30 out of 32 wonderful years,” she said.

They’re unhappy

Whether teachers leaving is part of the normal ebb and flow of modern workplaces or a sign of something troubling is open to interpretation. Whether a number of teachers are unhappy there, is not.

Seventy-five percent of Bronx Science teachers responded to the latest NYC School Survey, and 55 percent said school leaders let staff know what is expected of them, down from 71 percent the previous year. Twenty- five percent said school leaders invite teachers to play a meaningful role in setting goals and making decisions, down from 41 percent.

The grievances raised by the math department are easy to find in the blogosphere.

Last Friday, Justin Fox decided to observe another teacher’s class. He walked into the class and sat in the back for about 20 minutes, without asking permission or saying a word to the teacher. After 20 minutes, Jahoda came in and pulled him out.

It turns out that, during that period, the Sly Fox actually teaches a class. So, he must have walked out from his own class to observe this other teacher.

Several questions arise:
Did Jahoda put him up to this, or did he take it upon himself?
Where does he get off spying on another teacher?
Since he doesn’t have an AP license, what did he (or Jahoda) hope to accomplish?
Finally, will he be reprimanded for his arrogation of “authority”, or will this clear violation of a teacher’s rights be swept under the rug, as Jahoda has done so many other times for the SlyFox (like walking out of his class for 10 weeks)?

Stay tuned!

So, while not an administrator, he is not just a teacher – rather, he is a spy, a plant, and a collaborator.

And, just for the record, I did not “instruct” anyone to do anything. I merely informed them of what I know – that Fox and Lynn went to an arbitration meeting to appear against their colleagues and to support incompetent administrators. It is up to the teachers at Bronx Science to decide whether to trust them or not. I certainly would trust them – to report back to Reidy and Jahoda everything I say or do.