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What I received:
"Chris,
At last night's meeting, the Board of Education voted 6 - 1 to terminate your employment at Earlville
CUSD 9. Your last day of regular pay was yesterday, Monday, March 16. You will be paid for your remaining vacation days in
the March 30 paycheck.
Linda Robbins will be sending you information about insurance benefits soon"
I received the above in lieu of a written termination notice, from the superintendent of schools, four days after I was
informed I was being let go and put on paid leave, to have my fate decided by the Board of Education. The superintendent had
informed me she would be recommending my dismissal. The reason: "Your work was not up to district standards." Whatever that
means.
What I wrote to the board president:
"To Jerry and John and
the Board of Education,
There is a reason I did not write to you prior to
my dismissal to plead for my job. If my work hasn't spoken for itself up until now, pleading wouldn't have done any good anyway.
No matter what the Board decided to do, I felt a certain amount of damage had already been done. I have been a loyal hardworking
employee for the district 29 years and I know how thankless the work here can be. I can understand better than most of you
realize.
I still know people in the district I consider friends. I still consider many members of the board friends,
as well. That hasn't changed.
What has changed is my desire to be in a workplace where the needs and sincere concerns
of the custodial staff are ignored, dismissed, possibly even rebuffed with such indifference and hostility it boggles the
mind.
Prior to my dismissal, I was told I knew I needed to change and that I didn't. No, what I already knew was
that I needed to IMPROVE and I did. I HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN I NEED TO IMPROVE CONTINUALLY AND I DON'T NEED AN EVALUATION TO TELL
ME THAT. My evaluator acknowledged to me that improvements were made in the areas discussed, but I am supposed to think it
was not enough.
I wrote a response to the evaluation(s) and sent it to Dr. Hahto. I asked it be printed out and
placed with the evaluation. Did the board see it? It may not have made a difference, but I would like to think the board at
least asked to see my response.
As for the evaluations, I was always under the impression a good supervisor doesn't
just act as a spokesperson for an administrator or tell the administrators what they want to hear. He also stands up for his
people. I don't think that has happened much in the past three years. Obviously my impression of such supervisory responsibilities
and the district's are at odds.
As I have said before in a previous response to an evaluation: praise is verbal,
thus easily forgotten, but negative input is almost always well-documented. That is the way it has always been, but that doesn't
mean that is the way it should be. It needs to change.
The custodial staff always seems to be the last one for whom
there is any recognition and/or praise. What we usually see or hear is negativity and disrespect.
Other support
staff positions, such as secretaries, cooks, etc., are invaluable also. But literally no workplace could run without its custodians.
We are at least as important as the other components of a support staff. I looked at the district website today and under
Support Staff I didn't see a single custodian or maintenance man listed.
We have National Education Week, National
Secretaries Day, etc., but no Custodians' Day. No one wants to think about garbage being emptied, but it still needs to be
done. The excuses for not recogizing the work of a custodian are just that, excuses.
When you recognize someone,
you recognize them at their best, and it brings out their best. Also, you are really recognizing the best in all of us. If
this or any school district can't find a way to recognize even the so-called low men on the totem pole, what does it say,
ultimately, about the work of education in this culture?
Every day administrators and teachers around the country
see students with self-esteem problems. If those same educators look down their noses at the people who empty garbage for
them, unwittingly or even not-so-unwittingly, how should students see that? Even the slowest-learning student is not inherently
stupid; they recognize hyprocrisy when they see it.
This custodial staff, including Gary, Lee, Tina, myself
and now Kevin, has worked as hard as any other during the school year. We work hard every summer, as well. We accomplished
a near-miracle the last two summers, especially the summer before last, with the construction, life-safety work, asbestos
abatement, etc. I was more exhausted at the end of that summer than I have ever been. It was also the most rewarding summer,
but it could easily have been the most difficult, and it was accomplished through teamwork.
Now you have broken
up the team. And for what? Negative evaluations? "Work not up to district standards?" Aren't community and the district the
same thing? I was under the impression the community liked my work.
When people have asked me in the past,
"How's things at the school?", I tell them, "The kids are great." And you know what? THEY ARE! The kids we have are special,
and deserve the best we have to offer. The way evaluations are currently done doesn't give the custodial staff the chance
to do the best they possibly can for the students and community.
At its best an evaluation should be a tool to help
an employee who wants to do a better and better job accomplish that. In no way should it be a roadblock to improvement (which
it has been), or a weapon to attack a person's self-esteem.
I don't know what the ideal model is for evaluation,
but you could have the best model (whether it is teachers or immediate supervisors who evaluate custodians), and if it is
applied under less-than-ideal circumstances or with motives based on misguided assumptions, it may be grossly unfair.
For example, why was maintenance man Gary Ayala usually asked to evaluate us at the busiest time of year, basketball and tournament
season? No one's work stands up well to scrutiny, if the evaluator is overwhelmed or over-stressed.
And if negative
evaluations of me over the past three years were for the purpose of lighting a fire under me, I assure you it was never necessary,
or helpful. The sad fact is, many of the more positive motivation techniques, such as praise, for example, were seldom even
attempted.
Praise and recognition by the district would have been nice, but if I had relied
on that, I would have no self-esteem at all. The negative evaluation that Dr. Hahto held in her hands when she told
me I was being let go, did not even scratch the surface of my positive accomplishments.
As you can see, I have
a healthy sense of self that keeps me going. It is just that internal motivation, positive attitude, and yes, pride, that
has helped me and others put forth the best face on the district for the community for 29 years, even when positive aspects
of our work were ignored internally.
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