Help: The Catholic School Teacher Problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pawstruck
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
P

Pawstruck

Guest
Brothers and sisters, I would appreciate your indulgence on what may become a lengthy OP.

I teach at a small, private Catholic school in North Carolina, US. We have approximately 250 students, 14 faculty, and 3 administrators. Our school does not have an affiliation with any religious order, instead endeavoring to be “merely Catholic.”

I have a MTS from Boston College; I am quite ecclesially-minded (“conservative”), and have a taste for all things education. My first year teaching has gone swimmingly, with many commenting that I am clearly fulfilling a calling. Currently I teach history, latin, and an elective course in philosophy - I hope to teach theology soon-ish, although I am quite content with my courses.

Here’s the rub: Administration. They are a cold, calculating, fear-based triumvirate of micromanaging lurkers. If they had a motto, it would be “GRIT AND DETERMINATION!” (I have joked privately that Arbeit Macht Frei might work for them, in a pinch). In other words, they’ve bought the old lie that because good works sometimes involve difficulty, joy must be indicative of a lack of “hard work.”

Have you met this sort? They peck and gnaw at heels; they seek fault and they find it through scrutiny. Favoritism is so clear that one could quite literally make a tier list of faculty through the eyes of the administrators.

Additionally, they abuse the students by interrogating them “cleverly” about their teachers. “So, Johnny… did you think that test was fair that Mr. Smith gave you?” This is gravely disordered, in my opinion, because it creates an Orwellian tattletale system which both encourages rumor and naively preys on the faults that even the top students display: They are still children, after all.

Unfortunately for these administrators, I happen to take a great deal of joy and pride in my teaching. I won’t boast: Suffice it to say that parent/student complements are effusive and test outcomes are above par. I am submissive, quick to listen, and never make my distrust in them known - but I have a deep-seated peace that comes from knowing that ultimately, I don’t work for them, but for Christ. In other words, I respect the administrators, but do not fear them.

Anyway, this school has had legendary turnover problems. Although its online reviews are stellar, they hide a secret fact: Fully 50% of the faculty quit after 1-4 years. I’m just finishing my first year, and I’m looking to move, too.

[Continued below.]
 
Last edited:
My dilemma is that nothing has “opened up” despite a search that began back in February. Some initially-promising prospects have not panned out. I just interviewed with a school in Florida that looks quite well-meaning, but incredibly liberal - politically and religiously. I don’t know if I can say “yes” to them.

I find myself floundering for answers. I am married and want to have as many children as God grants. I would like my wife to be a stay-at-home mother, if possible. Tragically, despite a host of wonderful positives about my current school, I am terrified at the prospect of being next on the “hit list.” How could I risk my family’s future on the whims of three men who sit in a dark room complaining, and call it “administrating”?!

Every single teacher here has been on the “hit” list at some point (only one remains of the original faculty from the school’s beginning 14 years ago; even he almost quit when it was his “turn”). There is a policy of first-year-mercy, so I’ve been spared… so far… and in the way a guppy might be spared in a shark tank.

I really don’t know what to do. How do I know if God’s calling me to stay here or leave? I keep praying, but I don’t “hear” or “feel” anything - just nothingness. I plead with the Lord to show me the way, but nothing changes. To be honest, my faith has been weathered by the experience. I am tired and desperately afraid of making the wrong move. I’m not one to be cowed, and I fear the day when the administration calls me into the darkroom and I cannot brook their injustice. I could lose my job and expose my family to grave danger. I’m 29, and truly want children soon.

I would go to the ends of the earth for any student, I love knowledge and am a fairly potent scholar who just wants to light a candle. Why is this so hard??? What do I do!? 😥
 
My first teaching job was bedlam. It was a public middle school choir position in an incredibly impoverished rural area. I made it through two years. Even so, I outlasted three administrators. I loved the students but I couldn’t stay in that dysfunctional environment if for no other reason than the 90 minutes commute and salary of $26 grand a year. I was going into debt and I had no peace. So I resigned, despite not having a new job lined up, and knowing that there was a good chance that in their resentment, they would do whatever they could to keep me from being hired elsewhere.

I prayed a lot that summer. I interviewed at dozens of crap-tastic school districts as well as some very sketchy charter schools that aren’t even around anymore. I even looked at Catholic schools, though most of their music positions were part-time and not enough to even support my tiny apartment and car note. By August I was distraught. I had been turned down by some of the lousiest school districts in the area. I was out of prospects. School was starting in two weeks. I felt like an absolute failure and like all my years of working myself through college was a complete waste of time. I began to resign myself that there was a good chance I would be calling myself a “former teacher” and I called the district I lived in to ask to be put back on the sub list and called my former boss at Taco Bell to see if they needed a night shift worker. I had no idea how I was going to get health insurance.

I was driving home from my uncle’s funeral one night and feeling very down. I had cantored for the funeral so I had some cash that my grandma had given me as a gift, which was good, since I had no money and my tank was almost empty. I stopped to fill up and went in to pay and got $2 and some change. They lady asked me if I wanted to play the lottery with it and I said, “Sure, why not?” I figured that was probably as good an investment for $2 as any, so I bought a ticket. I carried it back to my car and started crying and praying. That ticket basically represented to me, giving up the idea that my intelligence, talent, and work ethic were sufficient to get me to where I wanted to be. If I was going to be a teacher again, I was going to have to put it in God’s hands. So I did. I prayed that He would bring me to the place I needed to be.

The next day, I got two phone calls, requesting interviews. One was from a smaller, public school district in a nice area. The other was from a Catholic school in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in my community. I went to the Catholic school first and interviewed with a sister who asked me what note-taking strategies I would teach to kindergarteners.

I remember thinking “WTH is this BS?!” I asked for clarification. Maybe she meant to ask how I would go about teaching kindergarteners to write musical notes? No. She asked me what note-taking strategies I would teach, for instance, if I was giving kindergarteners a lesson on Mozart.

I blinked.

I froze.
 
I tried to concoct in my mind some sort of example of a bizarre Venn diagram that might be used on her freakish, rich-kid kindergarteners for a discussion on Mozart’s major operatic works.

Then, I remembered my mother telling me as she dropped me off for my sole year of parochial school that you go to hell if you lie to a nun and I couldn’t go through with it.

I explained as nicely as I could that the question she proposed was nonsense. That no sane person would lecture 5yos on Mozart. That kindergarten music classes were supposed to involve internalizing pitch, rhythm, and beat through movement, singing, hands-on instrument ensembles, and dramatic play. She watched me silently as I explained what a music class is supposed to look like and I watched the clock and I realized that his interview was probably not getting me anywhere except late for my interview at the presumably normal school. I finally excused myself and flew across town to the other interview where I was 20 minutes late.

So, the day didn’t go so well. I met one loony principal and probably destroyed my chances with the normal one. My faith was wavering, but I reminded myself of my lottery ticket prayer and tried to convince myself that neither of those positions there “the right one for me.” And THEN, to test my faith even more, as I was driving home, I got rear-ended at a stoplight, totaling my car and sending me in for xrays I could not afford. I had to call my mommy to pick me up and take me home, which has to be the most humiliating thing in the world as car rides from my mom always come with an inventory of all the things I did wrong.

The next day, I was awakened by an early-morning phone call. It was the principal from the second school and for some reason, she was offering me the job! And the best part was, school started in two days! I raced right over to sign my contract and see my room. I got in there and opened the cabinets and it was like Christmas! I had stuff! Drums, xylophones, hand percussion, guitars, recorders, scarves, ribbons, colored paper, music that wasn’t illegally photocopied! Then I found out what my salary was going to be and I cried! (remember what I was making at the other school) And it included health insurance for me and my dependents! I could afford dependents! It was one of the most amazing days of my life!

So my point is, the Lord came through in a way that I hadn’t even dared to imagine. The job I got (and I’m still there, celebrating 12 years) was by far the best one available that year. I got turned down for every lousy job that was posted that year, one right after another, because God had a plan for me to be in a better place!
 
Oh, and that sister called me back and offered me a job at that school too. She even suggested that the PTO might get me some of those Orff instrument things I was talking about. I had to tell her I was already contracted. I still don’t know if she honestly had no idea what a music class was supposed to look like or if she was giving me the business to see if I would lie to her.
 
That’s quite the story, Allegra! I’m not sure how in the world I’d react to being asked if kindergarteners should be taking notes…

The challenging part is trying to find out what I’m actually looking for. I wonder if my standards are too high and I should just suck it up and stay here…? :confused:
 
There are a ton of Catholic schools in Ohio. It depends where they are located (suburban, rural or urban) but the small ones, like you are describing, have a tendency to be more micromanaged by a fastidious Principal.

It sounds like you could stomach another year of this. Also, two years looks a lot better on a resume than one.
 
Last edited:
Pawstruck said:
I have a MTS from Boston College; I am quite ecclesially-minded (“conservative”),
Click to expand...
Some of your consternation and difficulty in seeing those who are not in total agreement with you might stem form the fact that being “ecclesially-minded” is “conservative”, rather than being Catholic.

You may be putting up walls.

Hopefully this will not cause similar worries in your new position.
 
Last edited:
I’m a big believer that God speaks to us his plan through the doors that are opened or closed to us. I worked a job for ten years where I knew pretty much the whole time that I wanted to be somewhere else. Over the years, I pursued many different leads—some of which seemed perfect—that all came to nothing.

But then I got an email offering me a job I didn’t apply for in the town my family and a bunch of old, good friends live in. My house sold in weeks in a town where people typically have their house on the market for months (or years). Everything fell into place.

And I don’t regret the time at my old job. It prepared me for my present job in ways that I didn’t quite expect or appreciate at the time. It truly was perfect timing.

I think it’s fine to be looking for other opportunities. But if those don’t materialize, sometimes that means God is asking you to stick around where you are for a bit.
 
Hereiam said:
Some of your consternation and difficulty in seeing those who are not in total agreement with you might stem form the fact that being “ecclesially-minded” is “conservative”, rather than being Catholic.

You may be putting up walls.

Hopefully this will not cause similar worries in your new position.
Click to expand...
That’s a pretty sweeping and fallacious judgment extracted from the simple phrase “conservative.” Are you entering into this discussion with an axe to grind? If you don’t like the teachings of the Church, there are plenty of other options; why take it out on me?

In fact, Boston College is - in addition to being academically prestigious - known half-jokingly as “Barely Catholic” by its theology faculty (including Peter Kreeft). They’re having rallies for gay marriage and abortion “rights” on campus, for heaven’s sake. The fact that I attended and succeeded there should preempt, in the mind of a serious inquirer, any portrait of some austere traditionalist hoping to revive flagellation.

But then, you don’t strike me as a serious inquirer.
 
Last edited:
Op, I’m sorry that you are experiencing this.
Hierchy and things of this nature exists in all schools and in business too ☺️ ., and moreso in the secular business world.
It does sadden us more when it occurs in the realm of Catholic education though. The lowest man on the totem pole has to prove themselves, and a mutual decision has to come about to see if it’s a good fit.

Praying for you to find your fit. 🙏
 
Last edited:
Pawstruck said:
I could lose my job and expose my family to grave danger.
Click to expand...
I’ve been a teacher. I’ve ben an employee in a toxic environment more than once. But, really, this is overly dramatic.

If you lose your job, you’ll get another one. I don’t really think it rises to the level of “grave danger”.
 
I’m kind of confused by your post. How do you know there is a “hit list”? What happens to someone on this “hit list”, specifically? Maybe I am missing something, but it isn’t clear to me what the actual problem is. Has the administration questioned the quality of your teaching? What does “peck and gnaw at heels” mean, in relation to your job?

It sounds like this is a bit of melodrama. A guppy in a shark tank? They’re going to call you into a darkroom? If the administration of the school you’re teaching at is that terrifying, then yes, maybe you should get out. But if it is possible that you are exaggerating and are simply having a hard time adjusting to the teaching culture, maybe you should stick it out for a while and see if the things you’ve been hearing and are afraid of actually have any foundation.
 
Right. And what teaching job is guaranteed? A first year teaching is generally at the bottom of the totem pole in every school system. Last one in, first one out. That’s how it works. Until you’ve invested enough time that you’re tenured (if you’re in a place that does that) or at least have a few littler fish swimming above you in your department, you could always get picked off if enrollment goes down or the superintendent’s niece finishes her bachelors.
 
You don’t want to end up beaten up by administrators at one end and parents on the other. That is why you must - repeat MUST - work with administrators who have your back.

So you’re absolutely doing the right thing by sending out those resumes and staying in prayer. Don’t give up!

It sounds like you’re open to moving? Is your husband’s career situation flexible enough to handle a move? You should be giving your resumes to a lot of schools regardless. Message me if you’re willing to make a drastic move to the Northwest. I’ll pray for you.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top