The Threat

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There I was, alone in a meeting where three grown “professional” adults were doing everything they could to gaslight me into believing I really was a bad teacher.

After a bit of unproductive time went by, our HR representative clearly realized that I wouldn’t back down. 

She then got straight to the point.

She looked right at me and, without blinking an eye, told me that if I didn’t either show up to all weekly meetings in person (making it clear that I wouldn’t be able to pump during my planning period) or stay late after school for however long they deemed necessary, they would “consider it insubordination.”

Before I could respond, she continued by demanding that I must make my decision before I would be allowed to leave that office. 

She thought she’d try to force my hand by rushing me into making a rash decision with no time to think about it.

She thought I’d have my hands tied by threatening to fire me. That I’d be forced to obey immediately and agree not to pump during my planning period. 

I told her that I’d need to step out to make a phone call to my attorney before saying anything else. 

Apparently, they thought that was a joke because they chuckled a bit and told me that I’d absolutely not be making any phone calls to anyone.

So, I looked right back at her and said, “Okay.” Although, in my mind, that’s not all I was thinking.

I didn’t think they would really fire me over this. They didn’t have enough proof, and they wouldn’t want a major discrimination lawsuit on their hands.

So, I just sat there. 

If they wanted me to make a decision before leaving that office, I was going to sit there all day long. 

They weren’t going to force me to make a decision. And I wasn’t going to agree to stay late or stop pumping.

It was silent for a few minutes, and then she once again encouraged me to decide my fate.

That’s when I told her that I wouldn’t be forced to make a quick decision that would affect my health and my baby’s health. I also told her that I wouldn’t be deciding anything until I spoke with my attorney.

I don’t know if it was something I said or if she realized her entire day could be wasted while waiting for me to respond, but either way, she eased up a bit and told me I’d have until the end of the day to let them know what my choice was and that she’d be expecting to hear from me.

The meeting finally ended.

I stood in the bathroom and wiped my tears before returning to my classroom to finish the rest of my workday after being mistreated and threatened at 8 AM.

Here we go

As the day ended, I dropped my students off to go home and walked back to my classroom. 

Like I did every single day, I put a “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on my classroom door. I closed and locked the door, covered the door window, and pumped in my non-private, unclean pumping area.

And I worked because it was still working hours.

Remember, this particular pumping session was never an issue. I was never asked to stay late to make up this time, too.

As I finished pumping and packed up my things to leave, I opened my classroom door to find our instructional coach sitting outside my door waiting for me. 

My principal had told her that I’d be staying after work every day from now on and that she’d be the one to manage that.

I guess he must’ve forgotten about the emails and face-to-face conversations where I told him I wouldn’t be staying late.

As I began making my way out of the building, I informed her that this wasn’t true and that I hadn’t agreed to that. 

She reminded me that the principal (our boss) told her that this was supposed to happen. 

As I walked toward the exit, I kindly told her I would not be staying.

At home, as my day ended, I emailed my principal and HR one evasive phrase in response to their lawless demands: “I will attend weekly meetings.”

Beginning the next day, work was never the same.

Evidence

I knew that my work environment would be different after taking a stand like this. 

None of my coworkers knew what was happening at this point, so nothing was different with them.

My boss, however, was a different story.

His ego was clearly threatened by the fact that he couldn’t control me, and he was determined to do everything he could to make my life at work miserable.

After that threatening meeting, I began recording any and every interaction with each of the administrators. 

I made sure everything, and I mean everything, that he did or said was typed out and emailed to him for confirmation. I kept printed copies of all those and any other emails received from each of them.

I printed every score and comment my principal and assistant principal gave from the previous year.

I printed the handbook used to score our observations. 

I printed every score and comment from the current school year. 

Handwritten notes were scanned and filed away. 

Any documents I received were copied for my records. 

I kept it all. 

I kept every piece of evidence I could get my hands on because I knew this wasn’t over with him. I knew he wouldn’t back down.

I was so glad I did because it didn’t take long for him to start creating lie after lie to ruin my career and reputation.

Suddenly, my observation scores and comments became worse and lower than ever.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what he was doing.

He made claims about why I needed to stop pumping but didn’t have any evidence to back it, so now he was trying to create it.  

Hostile Environment

The amount of scrambling, backtracking, fumbling over words, and compulsive talking to make all of his lies seem to be true became incessant. 

Let me share just a few of the many stories I have to give you a glimpse of how he treated me throughout the remainder of the year.

Story Number One

Every single morning, he stood at the front desk in the school’s front office and watched everyone come into work. 

On January 7th, 2020, I was walking into work and talking to several other teachers who arrived at the same time as me.

When I got to my classroom and got settled in, I opened my computer to check my email, and the first one I saw was from him. 

This is what it said:

“This email is in regards to governing yourself in a professional manner while at Schooool Elementary (name of school). Each morning I sit in the front office to greet parents and staff as they enter. This morning you entered the front office and both the secretary and myself spoke to you and did not receive a response. In fact, I spoke to you three times. The last time, I specifically called your name to ensure you heard me. This behavior was observed by a parent, secretary, and another staff member.

…

My expectations for Professionalism and Communication are outlined in TKES Standard #9 and #10.”

First, what I found interesting was how he had the time to type this long email and send it out before school even started. It was almost as if he had this whole scenario planned out and the email already typed up.

Second, it seems as though he forgot to act out the scene where he was supposed to say my name and get the secretary to “specifically call my name” too, because that never happened.

The truth is, he said “good morning” to a group of teachers walking into the office that morning – me and two other teachers. 

Did I reply to him? No. I was making small talk with the other teachers, so I didn’t stop to reply to him. 

I had been threatened, lied to, lied about, manipulated, harassed, and retaliated against by this man on a daily basis for months, and it was continuing to happen at this very moment.

I knew I had to get some sort of proof that this email was a complete lie. Later that day, I began a recording on my phone as I walked to visit one of the witnesses who were there that morning. 

There was a bit of small talk, and then I asked if they heard anyone call me by my name and say “good morning” to me that morning. 

Their response, knowing exactly who and what I was referring to, was, “Nope, he just said a general ‘good morning’ like he always does. He didn’t say your name.” 

I asked this person if they were sure, and they assured me that he had definitely not said my name and also confirmed that no one else in the office (i.e., the secretary) had called me by name or even spoken to me at all.

I thanked that person and walked back to my classroom with a smile and more evidence.

Not only did he make the entire thing up, but he also made yet another threat at the end of the email. 

TKES is how we’re professionally scored as teachers, and he’s implying that he has the power to underscore me in Professionalism based on the lies that he created.

I responded to the email with one simple phrase, “Email received.”

Somehow, this never became an issue again, and I was never underscored in Professionalism for this specific issue.

Sadly, he thought every step he made was winning, but he was just providing me with more evidence to prove my case.

Story Number Two

On this particular day, he called me into his office after work. 

I walked in, and he proceeded to tell me that I was coming in to work five to six minutes late every single day. 

I politely disagreed, but he insisted and made it clear that if it happened again, there would be action taken against me. 

I said okay and then asked if he had access to my clock-in timesheet for each day that I had clocked in that year. He said he did. 

I asked him for a copy of it so I could see for myself what time I had been coming in each day.

His confidence suddenly deflated when he heard my bold response and said he’d get it to me when he could.

I never saw that clock-in report or heard anything else about the “issue” again. 

He also watched, beginning the next day, as I took a picture of the clock-in screen each morning when I walked into work to keep for my own records.

Story Number Three

By January 2020, right after returning from Christmas break, the harassment became ridiculously insane. 

Every single day of each week, I’d have at least one visit (on an off day) from either the assistant principal or the instructional coach. Most days, it was two to three visits. On a rare occasion, he’d (the principal) walkthrough for about a minute or less.

Two to three times every single day, my students and I would be interrupted by one of them walking in to watch me teach. 

They would come into my classroom and find a place to sit and watch. 

There were times when they’d take pictures of various things around my classroom. They’d answer phone calls, respond to someone over the walkie-talkie, talk to my students, and many other distracting things that would disrupt the flow of my classroom.

Not only was I being “observed” an absurd amount of times daily, but I was also required to meet with the three of them to discuss my progress once a week.

Very few meetings were actually beneficial where I was given real feedback that I could use to improve my skills. 

A majority of the feedback given were things such as:

“The font size of the standards posted on your wall is too small.”

This wasn’t an issue for the first six months of the school year but was suddenly mentioned multiple times. Even after I enlarged the font once, I was told to do it again.

Take a look at the font sizes in the photos below. The one on the left shows the standards I had posted in my classroom. The yellow standards on the right are the standards posted in a veteran teacher’s classroom.

Also, first graders typically can’t read many of the words used in the standards, let alone comprehend what they say, so 9.99 times out of 10 students aren’t trying to access them.

Many times, these were the only kind of things they could find to critique. Things that had nothing to do with my ability to teach. They were simply just nitpicking.

Most other things appeared to be legit concerns but were mostly concocted just to make it appear as if I was a bad teacher.

There wasn’t one single day from the return from Christmas break in January 2020 to the worldwide shutdown in March that I didn’t have someone disrupting my classroom to watch me teach.

And had it not been for that shutdown, it would have continued until the end of school in May.

Story Number Four 

Remember the one observation mentioned at the beginning of this story where the score and comments hadn’t been completed yet?

This observation took place on October 16, 2019, by the principal. But the scores and comments didn’t make it in until a few days after I had been threatened to be fired on October 24th.

The very first category scored was for lesson planning.

Planning lessons was a job requirement that I was obligated to fulfill according to the contract I signed.

Now, all lessons from every single teacher in the building are on Google Drive, and everyone in the building has access to them.

Lesson plans were due at the beginning of each week, and if they weren’t submitted on time, you’d receive an email from the instructional coach reminding you to submit your lesson plans. 

So there was no way you’d be able to get away with not doing them.

The score he gave me for this category was a two out of four. 

A score of one would mean you’re not meeting the category’s requirements, and a four would mean that you are exceeding in that category. 

His comment said this:

“There is no evidence of you planning instruction for your students. Please know that it is the expectation for teachers to plan instruction to meet the various needs of their students. Moving forward, please plan with the Instructional Coach weekly for planning.” 

Now, if there was no evidence of me planning lessons for my students, then I wasn’t fulfilling the job requirements detailed in my contract.

And if I wasn’t doing things that were specifically required of me, then why didn’t I get the lowest score possible, which would’ve been one out of four?

A score of one would’ve been appropriate since the claim was that there was NO evidence of me doing my job.

Also, every single person in that building could easily access my lesson plans from not only that year but the previous year, too. Two years’ worth of evidence to prove that I plan instruction for my students.

This statement was another bald-faced lie.

His poorly executed lies were proof that he was retaliating against me for declining to stop pumping like he wanted.

These things may seem outrageous and seem like a lot to deal with, and they were, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I could tell you so many more stories just like this that happened from October 2019 to May 2020. 

The Flawed Document

Here’s the final story that explains how I was treated during those long seven months.

On December 10th, 2019, I was called to meet with the principal and assistant principal. 

I, of course, was prepared with my phone ready to record every word. 

The assistant principal led the meeting, and the principal popped in a few times while dealing with a student.

I was quickly told that they were placing me on a PDP, Professional Development Plan, for my lack of behavior management and concerns with instructional strategies.

A PDP is a document that identifies areas where an employee is struggling and the steps that’ll be used to improve those areas. 

It was basically just something he thought he could use to scare and better control me. 

It was a document he needed to help justify firing me at the end of the year. 

It was something he had the power to use against me since he wasn’t getting his way with me.

This document will forever be on my teaching record. 

So, now it seems to future employers that I was a second-year teacher who was so bad that she needed to be on a PDP. And what employer wants to hire someone who’d be a burden to them?

This man was trying to ruin my career to simply retaliate against me for standing up for myself and my child and not cowering down to his foolish demands.

His ego was so threatened that he had to try to ruin a young, new teacher’s career before it really even began.

Here’s the funny thing about this PDP and how I knew it wasn’t something they were doing to help me improve as a teacher.

As I said, I was placed on the PDP because, according to him, my behavior management skills were lacking. 

Let me show you the worst comments and scores I received from my principal and assistant principal (I had the exact same assistant principal both years) during my previous and very first year of teaching to show you just how terrible my classroom management skills were.

“You run a well-managed and supportive classroom. Your students clearly feel safe with you and know that you respect them. I have observed this over and over each time I visit your room.” Score: 3 out of 4 (Observation by Principal)

“This is a real area of strength for you! You ran a tight ship and your kids clearly felt safe and secure in your room!” Score: 3 out of 4 (Observation by Principal)

This year, prior to being placed on the PDP, I received two observations where classroom management was scored. One got a 2 out of 4 (shown earlier), and the other a 3 out of 4.

I was also put on the PDP for the “issues” with my Instructional Strategies. 

Take a look at the scores I received from the previous year in this area. 

During this current year, I had been observed twice before the pumping issue began and was not scored in the area of “Instructional Strategies” for either observation.

However, I was scored in those areas after the pumping issue began, receiving two scores of 2/4 and one score of 3/4.

Those were only some of the PDP document’s flaws. As you can see, he didn’t place me on the PDP because I needed to be on one. He did it simply because he could and knew what it could do to my career. 

Shortly after this, on February 14th, 2020, he gave me the following letter, explaining that he would be recommending that my contract not be renewed for the following year.

I was angry. I felt helpless. I didn’t know how I could make it through the rest of the school year like this.

But what happened just a few weeks later was something I never thought would ever happen in a million years.

It was what changed everything for me.