You need family and community support for your schools to besuccessful ... By Jill Sheridan

This is an open letter to everyone associated with the New Bedford Public Schools. 

 I came to teach 8th grade science at Keith Middle School in 2009, despite the warnings. “Do you know how many projects go to Keith? The disrespect... You won't last a year...”

Well I lasted three years. I cut my educator teeth at Keith and  learned to teach successfully. I acquired the skills to develop lessons, manage a classroom, and form relationships with my students. The teachers on my team were my mentors, my friends, and my biggest support. 

The teachers at Keith were not only my greatest source of support, they were also the biggest supporters of many of our students. No one pushed harder, cheered louder, or invested more of themselves than those who taught our students. I was grateful every day for the opportunity to do a job I loved. Nevermind what I was told, here was a building full of professional, hard working, intelligent and effective teachers. But anyone who has been in your schools knows that.

So part two of my tale is the departure. I left the very month I attained the coveted “professional status”  because the writing was on the wall. With the new teacher evaluation being instituted, my effectiveness was to be measured in by my students' MCAS scores and judged by an out of touch central administration. As a young teacher with a family to support, I would have to be crazy to stay. My students were “engaged and enthusiastic,” according to my formal observation reports. I planned field trips, bought lab supplies, purchased classroom technology and I knew they were learning but I'm fairly certain they were not passing MCAS. (I cannot quantify that statement because that data was never made available to me by my department head from the central administrative office. However, third party evidence qualifies this). Statistically, I failed.

Fast forward to a few years later. I am now teaching in Mansfield, Mass. The contrast is stark. In New Bedford, my classroom was large, well equipped, and made for lab experiments. In Mansfield, I teach in a cold classroom that used to be a conference room in a 55 year old building. At Keith I had current (albeit, never enough) textbooks but in Mansfield I have 13 year old, out dated textbooks. We had laptops and a computer lab in New Bedford, but in Mansfield, we only have 35 computers for 1100 students. True story. Our per pupil expenditure in Mansfield is approximately $2500 less than that of New Bedford, despite the median income in Mansfield being much higher. Yet, quite suddenly, I am an excellent teacher. Proficient, effective, engaging, and talented, by some accounts. 

To what do I own my new found success? In Mansfield, I work with some equally talented and effective teachers but none as willing to give up their own time and money as willingly as my New Bedford colleagues. It isn't the teachers. No, it isn't the kids either.  Your problem, New Bedford, is much deeper.

Highlights from my years of teaching at Keith include finding an arsenal of knives in a student's locker and having that student return 40 days later with no real consequence besides a “vacation” (student's words) at the alternative school. Another student was pulled out of science by her mother because the parent could not find drugs and wanted to get high. The student hooked it up and came back to class (by her account). One year, I had a student intentionally defecate on my classroom floor on a regular basis. Students would come to school on drugs and brag about it. I was told where to go and how to get there articulated by four letter words in at least three different languages during my tenure. Parents would come to school meetings in pajamas. I also had a parent explain to me that of course her daughter was  upset with me because “Iwas f----  telling her what to do.” This is not in the job description teachers. Although these instances do not represent the majority of my students nor the city as a whole, they certainly do present a challenge to education. All of these examples represent administrative and parental failures. Therein lies your problem.

Picture this: You are in an emergency room with 25 needy patients. 20 of them are patiently waiting for medical attention but 5 of them are running around the ER pushing random buttons, writing on walls, and threatening personnel and other patients. What happens to the problem causers? If they won't comply, must it be the fault of the doctors and nurses? Is my analogy valid? 76

Your schools are failing because of deep cultural and political deficiencies. The variables in my teaching experiences are family and community support. I'll say it again. You need family and community support for your schools to be successful.  That this is not clearly evident to your superintendent and mayor is either shockingly ignorant, or inexcusably idealistic. I'm afraid New Bedford has time for neither scenario. 

Picture this: You are in an emergency room with 25 needy patients. 20 of them are patiently waiting for medical attention but 5 of them are running around the ER pushing random buttons, writing on walls, and threatening personnel and other patients. What happens to the problem causers? If they won't comply, must it be the fault of the doctors and nurses? Is my analogy valid? 

By now, many good teachers have jumped ship and many will likely follow. You will not attract nor retain the talented and best teachers in this climate. You will not create a productive climate unless you actively support those who are doing this work. Lip service means nothing in these times. I don't pretend to have a magic solution. My job is to teach so I focus on that. The job of any superintendent and his/her administration is to support the people they hired to educate the children of New Bedford thus those in elected offices and at 455 County Street need to find a way to be supportive of their workers rather than accusatory, productive in ideas rather than destructive, and do the job entrusted to them by people of New Bedford.