Who Is Teaching Our Kids?!

 A teacher who began the year, we thought, as an elementary substitute teacher in the K-12 charter school my daughters attend, was then brought in as a long-term sub for the algebra teacher during her pregnancy leave, and has now, mysteriously, moved into a more 'permanent' role, even with the return of the post-partum mom. Stories emanating from our daughters and their friends who have been or still are in this teacher's classes come in causing more and more alarm. We hear repeatedly about Mrs. M's proud boasting of her drug using younger days, about her choice to play rock and roll music ("Queen") during class, her hands off "let the book do the teaching" approach to teaching, and her hard-headed arrogance and unwillingness to work cooperatively or collaberatively with either her peers or her students.  

"I feel awful today but I can't miss school because Mrs. M won't let me turn in work late," announces our near-hysterical 15-year old Algebra One student, a normally all-A's student bent on getting the best grades possible so that she can get in to the best college possible. "I failed today's test and Mrs. M won't let me take it over, do a make up, or do any corrections for extra credit." And then, a few days later a 'progress report' comes home announcing her current grade: F. Then there are the numerous accounts of the copious amounts of junk food Mrs. M brings in for the kids--to win favor--which one teacher, Mrs. M's 'partner' in middle school math, claimed was undermining her own popularity among and enjoyment of her students. 

"My two friends, who are math wizzes and never get anything less than A's, now have Mrs. M for Algebra One and they were just informed that their third quarter grades are C's." And now the kicker: It turns out that Mrs. M 1) is a volunteer (working "out of the goodness of her heart"), 2) was, during the previous summer, the math tudor to the son of the school board president(who has already been accused of trying to micromanage the school, of strong-arming teachers, and of masterminding the Board's recent policies of distance, deceit, and deception), and 3) is the landlord to the school's current "interim" executive director. So what are her credentials? Is it legal for an unpaid volunteer to submit student grades? Shouldn't we parents get some kind of input or at least be informed on the kind of nutritional input our school and school representatives are offering our children? Volunteers are supposedly screened with a very thorough background check. Shouldn't we parents be alarmed about the daily presence and influence of a proud and boastful "former" drug user in the lives of our children? The most telling question I may ask of our school administrator is whether he and Mrs. M are sleeping together. Otherwise, I cannot for the life of me figure out why she is acting as a classroom teacher in a public school.