OPINION: Washoe County School District: Conceals the Truth. Students Are Not Held Accountable. Doesn’t Protect Substitute Teachers.

After retiring from a 20-year middle school teaching career in the Bay Area, my wife and I moved to Sparks. I really missed working with middle school students, so I signed up to substitute teach in the Washoe County School District (WCSD).

WCSD has daily shortages of dozens of substitute teachers – the offficial numbers of which they never release to the public. I thought the District would be interested in hiring me as an experienced math/science teacher, willing to work for far less than even a beginning teacher.

And they were.

For the past 6 years, I have successfully substituted hundreds of times in a dozen WCSD middle schools.  For almost that entire period, not only did I receive no complaints, but numerous teachers asked me to come back and fill-in for them in the future.

One example of my work was a long-term subbing assignment I had at Vaughn MS. I was asked to supervise their In-School-Suspension program (ISS): an alternative to out-of-school suspension for very challenging students.

For over 8 months, I tutored the ISS students with their classwork, counseled them on how to avoid future negative incidents in the classroom, and helped them develop a more positive attitude toward school. During that time I worked successfully with over a hundred students, as well as the Assistant Principal and many teachers.

But after years of subbing and dozens of successful assignments like the ISS example, I ran into problematic principals at Desert Skies, and Sky Ranch middle schools.

During the past year and a half, I was reported to the principals of those schools by a few students at each one. The students claimed that on one occasion I had made an inappropriate comment about things like student obesity and/or student gang members.

My comments were completely taken out of context  and inaccurate. The students were simply looking to stir something up with a new “sub.”  Anyone who has spent more than a few weeks teaching – and especially subbing with middle school students, can relate to this because it happens to teachers all the time.

I handled both incidents the same way any experienced middle school teacher would.

• I wrote down the truth about what was actually said and in what context.

• I then tried to meet 1-on-1 with each principal to make sure there were no questions about the falsity of the claims and the appropriateness of my responses.

Unfortunately, neither of those principals were interested in hearing the truth and refused to meet with me. Instead, the principals complained to WCSD’s HR office, choosing to distort my comments and blow them out of proportion.

WCSD contacted a private investigation company to “research” the facts, and had their Labor Relations office schedule a special meeting to discuss the matter. The way the principals exaggerated the minor incidents was frustrating to me, because it was an intentional mistating of the facts.  Eventually, I was told that, “Well, ok, you can go back to subbing, but just avoid those 2 schools.”

However, just a few months ago a similar incident occurred again – this time at Shaw MS.

It was the same situation: a very few mouthy and bored students complaining to still another ineffective principal. The students made up an absolutely false version of what a new substitute teacher said in class, just for the perverted joy of trying to get a new teacher “in trouble” over nothing.

Once again, the principal refused to just sit down face-to-face, resolve the situation in 30 minutes, and move on.  Labor Relations was called in once again – inappropriately. After seeing that I was not going to be bullied by them about this non-incident, they, too, refused to meet with me. They just told me they’d read the reports, didn’t want to hear what I had to say, and terminated me as a substitute teacher.

An Increasingly Out-of-Control School District

WCSD is allowing student behavior to escalate to a lethal level. Their administration refuses to hold students accountable, and I saw this at most schools I worked at. This has resulted in a brazen willingness on the students’ part to say and do virtually anything, because they know they can get away with it. Major incidents are covered up and hidden from the public on a daily basis, and it’s getting worse.

If this is the way other subs are treated – and from what I hear, it is; then it’s no wonder WCSD is never able to provide enough subs for its 60,000 students.

How has this ended?

For our WCSD MS students? They are missing out on an experienced and highly qualified math/science substitute teacher. With the majority of WCSD students testing at a functionally illiterate level, they need all the professionally qualified teaching they can get.

For me? I miss not being able to teach “my” kids.”  I loved working with our WCSD middle school students, and I think the feeling was mutual. Most importantly, my students learned infinitely more than they do when WCSD covers up substitute shortages by giving students “free days”, “study-halls,” or has a custodian, bus driver, cafeteria worker, or even an uncredentialed aide “teach” (aka babysit) their math and science classes (which is thoroughly illegal.)

For WCSD’s Superintendent and School Board? They’ll just keep going along like they always have. They’ll continue hiding the District’s growing dysfunction by wrongly blaming people like me. They’ll continue to lie to parents, telling them that “WCSD students continue to be provided with a World Class Education.”

From first hand observation, I can tell you that WCSD’s claim is ONLY true if the “World” they’re referring to is the Third one.

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