Thirty five years ago my father, a teacher at Hastings High School in New York, told me of his disdain for school administrators. He had eleven principals in the twenty years he taught. Most of them were spineless, fearful, arrogant, over educated people more interested in trying to keep their jobs than in doing the right thing for students or education in general. During my tenure as a professional educator I can say my dad was more right than wrong. My early years in Arizona education were uneventful. Administrators tended to be supportive of teachers in their pursuit of education. My first exposure to the random thinking of administrators was in 1983, when the school I was at , was hosting the first high school graduation in district history. Two years before, I had invited Senator Barry Goldwater to my class, and he graciously accepted. I thought it would be a nice Arizona touch to have the political kingpin of Arizona give a commencement speech. When I got confirmation that the Senator would accept, I excitedly told the principal. His response? He told me to make sure Goldwater limited his speech to five minutes. At that point I began to suspect that some people in charge really shouldn't be. The next decade or so went very well. I began to doubt my fathers wisdom. But time would soon prove him more correct than he could ever know. In 2003 I had been coaching soccer for several years and had become close to the parents of my players.. They had come to me with grave concerns about drug use among their sons and sought my help. I decided that I would drug test my soccer team with parent consent and ran the idea by the athletic director and he approved. Now that year we picked up a new principal who would bring absurdity to a new level. The first sign of this would be when this new boss found out that we had a couch in our locker room for players to rest, watch videos and play foosball while waiting to play our games. The boss decided on her own that a couch was a fire hazard, and despite the fact that the couch was mine , had it thrown out by maintenance crew. Her next faux paus was when our team was playing her old school and she came down and proceeded to meet her old students and hug each of them, while proceeding to ignore her new school. My players honestly thought she was principal of our opponents school. When they found out otherwise, to say they were angered was an understatement. But that was not the end. Over break, I decided to drug test the team with parent and athletic director permission. After we finished the testing, three players told their teammates that they would be testing positive. As we got the results we informed them that they would be dismissed from the team. There were no issues or conflicts. No lawsuits, bad press or player protest.. At an assembly shortly thereafter, some students were chanting the name of a dismissed player. I was called into the office and discussed the matter with our new principal. I remember her asking "Are we going to hear about this?" My AD said no, and he was right. No one complained, it didn't hit the paper and despite the fact that the three players were interviewed by the principal and she offered to reinstate the players, they all refused, I was ultimately suspended for eight days. I was charged with three things. First was not informing my supervisor. This was funny, since my AD was suspended for ten days and ultimately fired. The second charge was " vioation of privacy", because according to my principal, as the students were being tested, they could see the sticks in the cups of urine and see the results. They ignored the fact that the three students told their teammates as soon as they came out and the fact that seeing the cup didn't mean they knew whose cup was whose and what the result was. The third charge was "violation of staff ethics", the bureaucratic catch all, vague charge the district uses in all cases. After the 8 day suspension was issued, I would be told that I would be removed as department coordinator. I would never be directly told whether or not I would be allowed to coach the three team I was involved with. In the spring, I would attempt to transfer to a different school, to one of six open social studies positions, but somehow I was denied all of them. Now remember- at the time I had been a teacher for 24 years, department head for 11, teacher of AP U.S. history and government and a college, dual enrollment course and a coach of three sports. I was blacklisted. This would later be confirmed by the principal at Mountain Ridge, who hired me (I later figured out I was taken as a token, because no one in the district ever transferred into that school) when she asked me about what was being said about me at the district office and proceeded to tell me what amounted to lies, like that my AP parents and swim team parents disliked me. This was when I knew my dad was more right than he could have I imagined. But it didn't end there. When I went to Mountain Ridge, I was initially appreciative and attempted to ingraciate myself to the staff. I offered to coach two sports that were in need. And when that ended, I coached basketball for four more seasons. I performed at an assembly with my brother. I became involved in the Gilder Lerhman program as a scholar involving research and coursework on US History. I did the reading of the names at the graduation ceremony. In any normal world that would have been more than enough. But not here. In 2011 I was on a field trip to the jail for my college gov't students, and at its conclusion I put the field trip forms in an envelope and in a garbage can in an empty bus heading back to the lot to be cleaned out. A few days later the forms ended up at the school and I was charged with violating FERPA rules. In the words of the Assistant Principle, "I put kids lives at risk". The irony was that a few weeks later I had wanted to have my parent conferences in a separate work room (I somehow ended up one of two teachers out of one hundred who had to travel due to a new building). I was forced to have my conferences in a room with a fellow teacher where at least twice I had parent discussing their child's medical conditions within earshot of anothe teacher and parents. Vioation of FERPA? I had been taking my US Gov't/POS 220 class on a field trip to the jails 45 times. It was great trip that met standards, enjoyed by kids and approved by parents. In 2012, my trips had been approved but the kiss of death was that the new assistant principal decided to go along on the trip. At the end of the trip I asked how it was and her exact words were "it was great". However two months later this same administrator refused to approve my trip claiming that it did not meet standards. She was an ex PE teacher, telling the college certified instructor what met standards in a class she hadn't known existed the year before. In the words of the principal, "that trip had run its course". Now one has to remember that my class is a dual enrollment college class which brings in $3000 for each class that I taught. I felt that I was being singled out for some unknown reason. Along with the other accusations I decided to file an age discrimination complaint with the EEOC. I didn't really expect to win, but I did want them to stop the attacks. Didn't work. The suit was dismissed but what it did allow me to do was that if anything else happened to me, it would allow me to file a retaliation complaint if they continued to come after me for petty , vindictive, false and made up reasons. That was soon to happen. In 2012 I was accused of being a racist by the ELL teacher who determined that based on a first conversation lasting less than 2 minutes. In the office of the principal, I was forced to defend myself and was incredulous when the principal asked me "how do you think this made me feel?" I'm being accused of being a racist based on a 2 minute , first meeting conversation, and I am suppose to worry about what my principal felt like? Typically my principal knew nothing of my own background. She didn't know that I had worked inner city Phoenix for 20 years in aquatics during the summer. I was coaching a soccer team in the district made up of 90% minorities. In March, 2012, I was planning my summer vacation plans and found a resort in Maui that my wife wanted to go to. The only week available was during the 3 days of school inservice in August . I put in the request and explained that I would work in the summer to have all of my paperwork completed before I departed. I was turned down. A fellow teacher was give permission to miss two of the three days. The year before, another teacher was given permission to miss the entire first week of school to go on a cruise. It must have been because of that all important opening faculty meeting I would have been missing. In the spring of 2013, I took a day off of school for "family illness". In my 36 years of teaching, no teacher has ever been questioned about taking a day off for this. But in my case, I was told by my principal, that this random Wednesday was an important day, so in order to have it as a paid day off, I was going to have to document the illness. I emailed some selfies of my wife and me at the gynecologist office and this was deemed acceptable. These are the hoops I was forced to jump through that no one else did. In 2013 I was given a written reprimand because I responded to a parent in 72 hours instead of 48. The reason I delayed was because I had been informed that there was formal complaint against me by a parent, but in typical power based fashion, teachers were not told who was complaining. I was simply waiting to find out if this parent was the one who had already went over my head. How I addressed the matter would logically depend I how angry the parent was. This reprimand would cost me $2000 in evaluation bonuses. In other events, I was called out by my principal at an all staff meeting, , saying " Saverino, sit up and act like you want to be here!" Many of the staff thought it was a prank or a joke because it seemed like such a stupid thing to say. It's a faculty meeting- no one wants to be there, and I wasn't sleeping or on my phone or tablet. I was slouching in a seat. I had injured my finger on the job while coaching at a sister school closing up,our snack bar, when a metal window came smashing on my finger. More like crushed it. Went to the ER, came home, called in sick but put it under the category of "workmans comp". Next morning, my principal calls, not to find out if I'm ok, but to notify me that I had put the absence in the wrong category. The next year the principal claimed in a staff meeting, that there was a teacher amongst us who had been injured at a different school, but tried to blame Mt Ridge, referring of course to me. Lie. At no time during the ER, the workmans comp paperwork, or follow up doctor visits, did I mention my home school. Still more....I had an effective, long standing policy of dropping a low quiz grade if a student didn't leave class to use the restroom. Very effective in keeping kids in class. After being at the school for 9 years and using the policy uneventfully, my principal found out I was doing this and declared that this was in violation of Title IX. Now ignoring basic research which would have found no similar school law cases or citations, she ignored some other obvious information. She ignored my being married to an Italian woman for 39 years. Do you think I could live if I mistreated women? I have an even more Italian daughter...same question. And I also am a member of the aclu, naacp, Emily's list, and several other civil rights organizations. But based on this ridiculous legal premise ( she would not refer it to the district office legal advisors for some strange reason), she ordered me to stop the policy NEXT semester. Because if an administrator is worried about being sued, why not stop immediately? Now I did stop the policy, but did so quietly. Why? Maybe I didn't want every student to begin leaving my class on a ridiculous basis. I would later compare it to our dual enrollment attendance policy. All of the dual enrollment teacher tell their students verbally and in writing, that they can't be absent more than 6 times , or they will be dropped. Yet at every dual enrollment staff meeting , it was stated that we would not drop a student for attendance. Why? Because you don't want students to know. Same logic, right. Nope. Because I hadn't clearly stated my intent, it was determined that I was insubordinate and because students THOUGHT I had the policy, I must have had the policy. By the way, this came to,light because an unnamed student complained to an unnamed teacher that I wasn't letting them go to the restroom in my class. I later deduced that no such student could have existed. At the end of that year, I was again called into the office because I picked up my final exams before school instead of after school. It was inferred that I was doing so to gain an advantage for my students. I wasn't available after school because I had a meeting with a rep to discuss my impending suspension Then came this year. New principal, fresh start. Nope. First clue came when, with a new assistant principal in charge of field trips, I made a plea/argument that my jail field trip was valid. She agreed and approved the trip. A week later, while I was out serving my suspension, by email, I was informed that the trip had been investigated and "it was determined that the trip did not meet standards...and this had nothing to do with anything that had happened before." When I attempted to find out who had done the investigating, I got no response. I am the only teacher of POS220 in the district. Not many folks know the standards better than I do. Now first semester of this year was completely uneventful. No formal parent complaints. No one making things up about me. But it was only the quiet before the storm. This would lead to 2nd semester , where my evaluator, who had deemed me effective last year, would place me on an improvement plan because I taught a class without " think, pair ,share". For this plan I would write 8-10 sets of lesson plans, overseen by my fellow teachers and every single one of the would be deemed bad, without a single positive comment. I would be observed two more times , meeting the required 10 minutes of student to student interaction each and every day, but of course my evaluator and principal both agreed that I did not improve in the area of instructional delivery and would be terminated. I chose instead to resign. Now I've been teaching longer than my evaluator has been alive, and longer than both of them had been in the classroom or in public education. I also took both of them out to lunch in the beginning of the year as a gesture of good will in my part. Biggest waste of money. Now how do I know I wasn't getting a fair shake? In a conversation with my rep, the principal acknowledged that she had conversations with the previous principal about me. And several weeks ago I suffered a retinal tear and was out of school for three weeks, having to lay down to facilitate healing in the eye most of the day. Both my evaluator and principal believed I was home "burning days off". These are people making important decisions based on their own naive, ignorant ideas of who their teachers are. They dont know that I am the guy who invited Barry Goldwater to the first graduation. They don't know that I am the person who created the community service project and promoted it to become a district wide mandate. They dont know that I was one of the initial dual enrollment teachers back in 1998, bringing in over $100,000 to the district. They dont know I taught AP US History for 9 years , with scores exceeding national average. They dont know that I was a department coordinator for 6 different principals, all of whom were better than this current crew. They don't know that my students came within 4 votes of getting their own bill written and passed in the Az State Legislature. And they obviously didn't listen to the thousands of students who I have been honored to have had before me. Many have become good and great teachers in their own right. And when the schedule pegged for my position had the POS 220 classes dissolved before my final observation and evaluation, I knew the admin had no intentions of bringing back, no matter what I had done during this semester. And lastly, I offered to pull my ongoing retaliation complaint against the district if I would be allowed to teach one more year. No sale. Also ironic that just before this decision was made, I was honored by the district for my 30+ years of excellent service to the district. Now this is just my story. Multiply this by other teachers with similar events and you can get the picture. Administrators go into their field for money,power, fill the holes in their own fears and personas. They are not the true "lifers" that the rest of us are. And if they didn't intend to end up following orders, mindlessly, far too many of them get there just the same because they lack a moral center and the ability to stand up and do something right. And to all of this I say, "Dad, you were right all along."
Now I wrote this for several reasons. First of all, I am a big free speech advocate. My recent students know that on my bucket list is to be arrested for civil disobedience. I take pride in being a part of the largest protest in US History. I truly believe the more we know, the better decisions are made. And we should stand up and voice our ideas. Secondly, that there is a price to all policies. All parents want their kids to be educated, but everytime we vote for a governor who puts prisons over schools, and a legislature that is withholding 300$ million dollars from teachers or just buy into the whole anti-government, cut taxes, anti union mentality, there are victims. Usually nameless and faceless. I just happen to be one of them. Its just too easy for a person with a Masters in Adminstration, following orders, being petty or just being misguided to decide that a teacher has to go. There is no check except their own professionalism and integrity. Hopefully I have proven that too often, those qualities are in short supply among administrators. So, think about the people who we vote for and remember who their policies will impact. And lastly, I wanted my most recent students to know that I enjoyed their company and loved being their/your teacher. I did not want them to think I had been discontent with the year that I had involving them. Though I was dismayed at having to do all the "think, pair share" activities- guys, I was told I had to do those because of the "improvement plan". It obviously didnt work. I believed the students I had learned, not only about the subjects, but about being a solid citizen, being involved, voting, and most important, being informed with accurate facts and not just stuff that was made up. And encouraging them to go out, chase dreams, have fun and live an interesting life. The classes I had in 2014-2015 were just as good as the other 36 I have had (Don't listen to your parents about "kids these days". I knew some of your parents when they were in my class, and they were just the same. And they grew up to be really great people, who overcame their own obstacles, lived quality lives and raised really great kids).