Thursday, March 26, 2009

Bad things happen to good people

So I'm new to this whole blog thing. So i'm just going to say whats on my mind and possibly get some feed back. So this is me and my story.

Last December my wife Krissy graduated from the education program at ISU. She has worked pretty hard for the last 6 years to get this degree, why did it take her so long? She worked full time for about 5 out of those 6 years. So now that she is done with school its time for her to find a job. The semester has already started so nobody is really hiring teachers, so there is only really substituting available. Subing is really hit and miss, as you could imagine. Very difficult to try and manage income when you don't know where it will be. So thats the background, I'm probably boring you but no one is making your read this..... On Jan 18th of this year there was a first grade teacher at Washinton school decided to walk out on her job one Friday afternoon. Nobody knows for sure why, although there are rummors of affairs with students parents and a possible devorce with her own husband. No one knows the exact answer, but at any rate that leaves the first grade without a teacher. Krissy applied interviewed and got the job. The title is a long term sub that would be there for the rest of the semester (May.) Finnally we got our big break!!! By the way we are going to call this former 1st grade teacher "Tiffany" why? because thats her name, no secrets here. So Tiffany walked out on her job for so called "personal" reasons. Now Tiffany has about a months vacation she has to burn before she needs to return to her classroom. ( we have to pause here for a second. How many of you reading this can say that if you walked out on your job you would have one when you wanted to come back? In my experience of employment if you walked out on the job you were pretty much quitting right then and there.) Ok so back to the story. So her 1 month is up and its time for her to return to her classroom which puts Krissy out of a job. (crappy I know) However, Tiffany decides that 1 month isn't long enough. She puts in an appeal with the school district for 6 weeks disability leave. So guess what? She gets it!!! unbelievable!!! There goes some more of our tax money to pay for someone to avoid work because of a mental state that was self inflicted......... Last Friday March 20th was the end of her 6 week "extented" leave. Tiffany was expecting to get her classroom back and finish out the year. Wrong! You don't have to be intelligent to guess that Tiffany wasn't a very good teacher. She had no patients with kids, she was a very unorganzied slob, she was also very disliked by students, parents, and even staff. We knows this because it all came out during parent teacher conferences that were held 3 weeks ago. So to us its a blessing for the kids, parents, staff, and especially Krissy to be able to finish out the year as their teacher. She is paid based on 7.5 hour days, she usually puts in close to 9 or 10 everyday. She even goes in on weekends to make sure she does everything she can to turn what was a miserable learning environment to a fun one. (letters from the parents prove that she is doing what she set out to do) She has also invested close to $200.00 in the form of DVD's, treats, games, decoration, rewards bulliten boards, ect... in an attempt to help make 1st grade fun for the kids.

Over the past month the principal has told Krissy to box up all of Tiffany's things and put them in a supply closet when she decides to come back to the school and get them. Its the middle of spring break so no one is at the school, so last night Krissy got one of those feelings that she needed to go to the school and see if Tiffany decided to get her stuff. She was horrified to see that not only did she come and get her stuff but she stole a lot of Krissy things including; DVD's, treats, decorations, books that belonged to the school, learnign supplies that belonged to the school such as white boards, even her desk and chair. To make things worse before she left she decided to trash and vandalize the whole classroom. Last but not least she took Krissy's bullitin board that she just got done spending $20 on and in its place stapled 2 smiley faces on the wall.

She spent the majority of the evening and night crying and asking me what we should do. Any ideas....

2 comments:

  1. first off ty, i want to tell you that was a wonderful post. i loved it, and this is exactly what blogging is all about. sadly i dont know why bad things happen to good people, belive me i wish i did. does the school know yet? because they usually have insurance that would cover vandalism. it might take some time to get things back to where they were, but they will get there. tell her to be strong, because thats what the principle guy will look for when he hires someone full time for that job, and maybe he'll keep krissy on as a permanent replacement for "tiffany". i know you like to pay off that credit card each month, but maybe offer to let a few dollars cary over so she can go replace what she absolutely needs. that way she knows you are trying to support her and help her get through this discouraging event. just a thought. i know its hard cuz stuff like this takes money to put the pieces back together, and these days no one has alot of extra to spend. i dont know if this will help and sorry this comment is so long, but things will improve... they have to.

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  2. First...what a B*@#!%

    Secondly this is my kick her A$* answer!

    The principle needs to be involved and so does the school board. They need to seriously do something about it! Krissy needs to make a list of everthing that was taken of hers and the cost of the items, she needs to take pics of the mess the lady made, she needs to let the board know that her personal property WILL be replaced!!! She needs to make sure the board does everything possible to repremend her! It's one thing to do that to Krissy but it's another to do that to innocent children. Im holding back by the way! I seriously would be throwing a major fit! My first reaction would be to yell and be extremely vocal with upper management! But then I would calm down.
    But thats also not the totaly mature thing to do.

    Now this is my nice answer.

    Krissy does need to make sure that the principle knows what she did to the children's things because no matter how she behaved toward Krissy it's 10x's worse to do that to children! Its IMMATURE! She needs to make sure that the principle knows that it's wrong but that she personally is ok and that she is more concerned about how the this could have affected the kids. She still needs to make a list so that they are aware of her personal property being stolen! I also would make sure that things are as normal as possible on monday when the kids come back. I know she can't replace the books and stuff but she maybe could find another activity for a few days that would distract them from looking for the missing books and puzzles!

    Im sure none of this is helpful and I hope Krissy knows that NONE of this is her fault! Tiffany obviously has no place being a teacher!

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