As summer continues to taunt us, the students and teachers at L.A. Academy continue to surmount the challenges imposed on us by a bankrupt state, and cynical society (fueled by non-stop negative press by the L.A. Times and other bandwagon followers...)
Our school continues to work with new staff who are still adjusting to working at the middle school level, since the majority of them came from elementary and high school. One has left the school this week, leaving us with another unfilled on B Track. Teachers serving in the capacity of substitutes (due to being laid off in the Reduction In Force) are being hired back slowly, but seemingly without rhyme or reason. B Track teachers on vacation have had to work as subs on A or C tracks to maintain their health benefits, but when they return to their "own classrooms" at the end of the month they will not have had had any rest or vacation, unless they take time off, which results in a day to day sub covering their current assignment. One such teacher was clearly upset at having to relinquish a class of students who were in dire need of a permanent teacher. It took all her skill to be able to maintain order of the class and to actually teach, and she know a day to day sub will struggle tremendously when they take over.
Speaking of benefits, we received notice that teachers' health benefits will be changing next year, and we will see an increase in co-pays if we select to maintain services with the UCLA Medical Group or Cedars Sinai Medical Group. To read about the changes,
click here.
On another note, our air conditioning gave out the latter part of the week, and we wondered how a 10 year old school can have so many air-conditioning problems. Some buildings have never had air-conditioning due to unfinished labor in the original construction, but by the time the request for service had been turned in, we were told it would take at least a couple of years for it to be completed. The monster that is the bureaucracy in LAUSD does not win any fans when you are trying to teach a class full of middle schoolers in 95 degree heat.
Finally, we are curious to see how the battle for the
Construction Division turns out. Do we really want to go back to the good old Belmont days? As someone who works in 95 degrees June-October, I say
pay Guy Mehula his money!image from hubpages.com
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