Guest Post #2: Firing Teachers Without Due Process

When you sign up to work for JPA/PSM you sign a contract that isn’t called a contract, but a “letter of agreement”. You agree to have no rights and agree to sacrifice your career for a greater mission. You do so, trusting that you will be working for reasonable people. That you won’t be harassed by egomaniacs who take offense at the slightest inquiry. Show up to work every single day, do as your told, and it won’t make a difference. You can be demoted on a whim. You signed up to teach one grade, and now you’re the teacher’s assistant for another. You can be fired in an instant. All of these scenarios fall under the pretense of “accountability”. There’s nothing inherently wrong with keeping teachers accountable to achieving results in the classroom. However, what happens when there is something seriously wrong with the school leadership? When your administrator becomes so paranoid, that a single comment can start a chain of events where you will be harassed until you quit, or be fired.

Unfortunately, there is no accountability for the leadership. The letter of agreement is a joke that guarantees no protections. You have to be very careful to not air any concerns, even when prompted to. Team meetings where you’re discussing new policies make you feel that as teachers, you might have a say in what happens in the classrooms and the students, but in reality what you say will come back to haunt you. It shouldn't be this way, but it is. Leadership at these schools will comb through your most mundane emails and draw inaccurate conclusions about the measure of your loyalty. If they find it lacking, beware. You may find yourself without a job.

Your loyalty will also be questioned if you leave work at the time you’ve agreed to leave work. The letter of agreement states “contract hours” which can change at any given time at the discretion of leadership. If you have family obligations, evening classes, be ready to sacrifice it all if you think you can leave work at the designated time. Leaving at the end of your workday, at the agreed time shouldn’t be used against you, but it is.

Finally, and this is directed at future teachers of Jay Pritzker Academy, make sure you don’t have any issues with the racist school policies, because if you do and dare ask any questions, you will be targeted. These are reasonable concerns to have, especially when educating and empowering Cambodian students. A reader asked for specifics, here are a few of those questions to tip-toe around: 

Why aren’t Cambodian teachers allowed to speak in English at the school?

Why aren’t Cambodian staff members allowed to sit more than three persons at a table, when foreign teachers can sit eight to a table?

Why can you never be a head teacher if you speak English perfectly, but have an accent other than a British or Australian accent?

Why do Cambodians have extended workdays, slaving away from sun-up to sun-down, 6 days a week? 

The children in these underserved communities deserve better. They deserve stability and not have their education short-changed because of the insecurities of the current leadership. The questions above are specific to JPA, but there are teachers at Providence Englewood Charter School who have been unfairly targeted after attending public board meetings for their school. I hope they find a voice and share their own stories.

I CHALLENGE JEANETTE OR STEVE TO SHOW ME THE CHANGES.

I've been kicked off my blogs (see first note on this new blog). Jeanette is freaking out that I started a critical blog about her. She has bought her domain name, she signed up for every blog with "psmnow" and "jaypritzkeracademy." She is reaching out to newspapers. You used to be able to find my blog on the first page of google searching Jeanette Dibella. Now the links are down. WOW! As I said in my first blog entry, I feel flattered.

I am not keeping this blog to slander Jeanette Dibella. Jenn Sullivan called me evil in a previous comment on this post and made Jeanette look like a victim. Let's be clear about one thing. She is not a victim, and she needs to be called out. She is intimately connected to two of the wealthiest people in the entire world, and in a position of power over many teachers and students of color. She fires people without due process and conveniently claims they signed an at-will contract. This woman is not a victim, and I hope no one is fooled by her people inundating the internet with propaganda.

To be honest, I learned a lot from Jeanette. She knows a lot about how to run a classroom. She insists we use VAKT, Blooms Taxonomy, and useful technology in the classroom. She insists we make our behavioral and academic expectations clear from the start. She likes research based methods of teaching. All good things. The problem is not with Jeanette's expertise and the few moments that the expertise is used in a positive, un-abusive way.

JPA also has its positive points, like feeding the students three meals a day, giving them medical and dental check ups, giving them enough uniforms to wear throughout the year. Do you see why I would give up my comfortable life and stable job to move to a country across the world? Much at my own expense?

These positive points are what drew me to work for Jeanette. She is charismatic and exudes leadership. I was excited to learn from her.

The problem is not with her knowledge or the few teachers and students who can escape her paranoid scrutiny. The problem is with the questions that are not being addressed by Jeanette, Steve McCambridge, now Jennifer Sullivan, and definitely not the Pritizkers.

The questions still remain. Does Jeanette push students out of school to make her own graduation stats look better? Will JPA continue to cut students in the lower school? Is Jeanette allowing teachers to be fired without due process? Does Jeanette check teachers' emails? Have the Pritzkers paid people off after they've been fired unjustly? How much have they been given? Does PSM treat African American students as a stand in for Cambodian students? Is Steve really asking the Cambodian staff to not speak English? Will Dan and Karen Pritzker really not hire anyone with an accent (British/Austrailian the exceptions of course) to teach at JPA? Are teachers working in fear at PSM? Why does Jeanette insist that students have no first amendment rights?

These are not speculations. They are questions that need DOCUMENTED answers. If you are a leader of JPA or PSM and would like to show documented proof that you are improving the policies/milieu of the school, I would be happy that perhaps this blog of dissent was a part of that change. But when I read posts like Jenn Sullivan's, I have a lot of doubt that will happen.

JPA Head of School: Steve McCambridge

I said I'd be writing about Julie Jovan, but I'll have to put that one off.

It's about that time where international schools are recruiting teachers, and I feel it's my "responsibility" to discuss Steve McCambridge. You'll find out later why I put "responsibility" in quotes.

Steve was the head of operations at Jay Pritzker Academy while the former principal was still there. After raising school wide test scores by a miraculous percentile, the principal's contract was terminated. That's not my story to tell, but I'll just say that he and Jeanette Dibella had a large disagreement and the billionaires flew out to Siem Reap from San Fran to fire him, giving this as a reason: they were doubling down on Jeanette. Whatever happened to negotiation? This also left the teachers feeling like we had no job security. If the principal can get fired with no due process, what about us?

Dan Pritzker assigned Steve McCambridge as the new head of school. Dan told us that he believed Steve was serious about education and about Cambodia, since he's been an expat for ten plus years and can speak conversational Khmer. And as head of operations, he did work hard to keep the campus beautiful--I'll give him that. He made sure the walls were painted, the buses were running on time, and the food was nutritious. The teachers witnessed him taking a very angry and demeaning tone of voice when speaking to the Khmer staff, but since we didn't understand Khmer, what could we really say. He also fired the Khmer staff with no due process, and he seemed to do it quite often. We would come to school and there would be another bus driver, another custodian. Well, he was always very polite to the white expat staff.

When Steve first was promoted, the teachers supported him. We wanted the school to work, despite the political problems. The students are amazing. They are well behaved and hungry to learn. The Pritzkers promised that they college was in their future if they received a certain level of success on test scores and school work. We wanted them to go to college, badly. So, we worked with Steve, although he does not have a university degree. We worked with him while he proceeded to demoralize teachers (Khmer and expats this time), students, and other staff.

The next posts:

How Steve McCambridge Demoralizes Students

How Steve McCambridge Demoralizes Teachers

How Steve McCambridge is Racist Against Khmer People

Cutting Kindergarteners Part II

On October 26th, 2009, Merlene Davis's website, "What's up? with Merlene" quotes Jeanette Dibella saying this about Paul Adams, the president of the school:  “I loved how he was able to make it simple in black education. It is simple and hard work. So many people blame the families, but you take the child and educate them and make them know they can succeed.”

It's a nice idea, except in Providence St. Mel, they do blame the families. Especially if the families interfere with their graduation rates. PSM boasts of a near 100% graduation rate, but what about their retention rate? Is it necessary to cut kindergarteners?

While at PSM, an intern worked with a “slower” kindergarten student one-on-one so he could catch up to the rest of the class. His handwriting wasn’t as good, he often spaced out, he didn’t grasp math topics quickly enough. His worst crime was that out of all the kindergarteners, he had the lowest score on their standardized exam, something like being in the 10th percentile.

No problem, right? We can teach him. Don't blame his family. 

He was kicked out. Private schools can do that. The teacher tried to get them to allow him to repeat kindergarten, but the answer from the top was a firm no.

The teacher and the intern had to watch the parent teacher conference where the department head, Julie Jovan, broke the news to this child’s mother. The department head said, “It was your responsibility to help him after we received the results of the standardized test.” Understandably, the mother started to become defensive, but Jovan pinned the blame on her and ended the meeting.

The intern thought he was an interesting kid who wasn’t as slow as they thought. He verbally answered all the questions correctly; it was filling in the bubbles that tripped him up. He spaced out a lot, sure. But if you’d say his name a couple of times, he’d buckle down and get all his work done. He was observant, watching his teachers carefully to see when he could make a joke that would make them laugh. He cried when he received a bad score because he didn't want to disappoint his granddad. He was only five.

I guess this case is just an exception in "black education"?

Next post: How Julie Jovan called a teacher a passive Asian and called African American parents criminals (And this is no joke, people!).

Cutting Kindergarteners Part I

This is a picture of current kindergarten students taken from the JPA website. There are 60 kindergarten students at the school. By 2014 or 15, they will cut 30 of them. What was unclear to the teachers when they first began is that the Pritzkers and Jeanette Dibella want an elite group of students by the time they graduate. I'm not sure how they will decipher who is "elite" when they are five or six years old. Test scores? Yes, they take American standardized tests, for which the teachers prepare them during the entire year. A lot of fill in the bubble under the correct picture. Of course there isn't consideration of cultural differences, e.g. the name Lydia belongs to a girl and the name Jonathon belongs to a boy, so if you use a gender-specific pronoun in the oral question prompt, the kids are already confused even if they know the knowledge being tested.

However they do it, 30 of the students will be cut. This means that 30 students will suddenly no longer have doctor's visits, vaccinations, dentist visits, 3 nutritious meals a day, 8 sets of uniforms, a full American education. The school has so much promise, and promises so much, yet they make decisions like this. I guess many will just go back to their grass-thatched huts where there isn't electricity, and to the corrupt public schools where teachers ask for bribes and students sit on rickety benches to learn almost nothing.

Update: Word is, they will not be cutting students from kindergarten this year. Here's to hoping the Pritzkers and Jeanette had a change of heart about the students' worth and future. I highly doubt it. Steve did say (relayed from the Pritzkers, according to him) if the students weren't cut this year, they will be in first or second. By the time they get to middle school,  JPA will have an elite group of students. 

Guest Post: A must-read about JPA and its leaders

Guest post: 

JAY PRITZKER ACADEMY MISSED OPPORTUNITY POST

YO AUSTRALIA AND CHICAGO. YOU DON’T REALLY THINK SWEATING MY BLOG IS GOING TO DO YOU ANY GOOD, RIGHT? You all sure are searching: “Jay Pritzker Academy” “Jeanette Dibella” and “Providence St Mel” a lot. I can tell what computer you’re doing it from, you luddites. What browser. What operating system. How many times you searched. What pages you read. I know the neighborhoods you’re sitting in when you arrive. I know it’s you. Since you’re stalking me, I have some parting words.

I love my Cambodian students and admire Khmer culture that perseveres in spite of the thick ever-present colonialism in its midst that its elites milk for all the payoffs and kickbacks it can get. If it’s not crooked, corrupt, or inept NGOs, it’s entrepreneurs out to make a quick fortune before abandoning the country and its people.

To my employers,

Unlike you all, the teachers weren’t in conspiracy against administration at JPA. We all suffered the stresses of daily life in Siem Reap on behalf of a greater good, not our resumes, sense of self worth, and legacies. Even the teachers who came and quickly wished they hadn’t, or were in over their heads, gave the most they could, which is really all any one can ask after the ridiculously inept training offered in Chicago. You need to train teachers on site and you need to bring them a month before training begins and pay them to become oriented to life in rural Cambodia. And you can’t be treating African American students as stand-ins for Cambodian students. (I don’t think you realize how fucked up that is—sure, I know, you claim it’s about the PSM way. We know it’s actually because the administrators don’t want to be in Cambodia because they hate it there. Truth hurts.)

We all now know how Jeanette works and are more than satisfied that Steve was so bad at covering up her requested manipulations that we all feel rather abused, but there was no conspiracy. I mean, the Weils who you sent to JPA wanted to run the school, but that’s because you had them wrapped around your finger, Jeanette, let’s be honest. Even they were mistreated. And there’s no reason for it. The downhill slide began with rehiring the Weils, and it was a shambolic display of manipulation and incompetence from that day forward. PLEASE stop looking for teachers to blame. Blame yourselves and, for the sake of the village the school is in and all those families, please get your shit together.

Jeanette, we would have worked at the school for years and years under any difficulties, but you let a complete fucking psycho run things and harass us. And for that, even though I only spent a few hours with you, I’ll never have any respect for you. I think you saw good teachers under tough circumstances and chose to play games with us. I don’t know what you get out of it, but it’s the most pressure I ever felt as a teacher and for stupid reasons. I was being hounded by two overbearing and abusive men for not learning a curriculum I’d never taught, was never trained in, and was slowly acclimating to—I mean, what was it, one month when you evaluated me? I was writing new lesson plans, new outlines, learning to assess and rubric in a different way. I was a fucking superstar for all I achieved in such a short time, and I know you encouraged Steve and Roberto to harass me. Steve’s an ass but both he and Roberto are chickenshits, too. You insisted. Maybe you weren't aware what a hateful horrible manager the man is like you do now, but that’s your fault.

Steve, at least Jeanette is good at her job. I actually learned from her and she watched me teach for what, 30 minutes. I may think she’s a manipulative jerk, as you’ve likely well learned, but you know she’s not hopeless. I hope you enjoyed abusing students and teachers and firing staff while you had the opportunity because, at least, you know, one good thing will come out of the fiasco Jeanette’s selfish manipulations have caused JPA and its community over the last 2 years. At least you’ll be gone. The people of Tachet will rejoice. I remember you told me you never get angry. I bet you’re fucking angry now, you supremacist sack of shit. I have no sympathy for you at all. (I know while you read this, you’ll be thinking how, in fact, the locals respect you. It just shows how little you know. Not many don’t hold you in contempt. And we don’t blame them.)

Should a Pritzker read this: I don’t know what you guys think you’re doing in Cambodia, but I learned one thing from teaching at JPA. The students aren’t the center of your attention. Your legacies are. That’s a crisis not a mere conflict. When I heard you go on about how accents in English are important and so you won’t hire teachers who speak with an accent because it will hurt the kids and you insisted we teach how to speak English correctly as if a standard accent exists in our language, I knew you were clueless about language and about teaching. You said this in front of the Khmer teachers. Can you imagine how that felt? I miss the kids and appreciate the opportunity you provided me. I meant everything I said when we spoke in Siem Reap, but you spoke above us and at us and didn’t really consider our mission as teachers. Until you learn what it is teachers like us are about and how we’ve learned, where we come from, what we can do, and why we’ve sacrificed our lives to classrooms, I think you should defer to those of us with experiences you’ll never but read about, the result of your ridiculously alienating wealth.  Nobody needs your input. We just need(ed) your financial support. A little faith please. And I’m deadly serious: Jeanette Dibella is a monster. If you’re worried about your legacy, she’s the one you should fear. She may be a good evaluator and be able to be a boss, but at what cost? Or is it just the way white people feel that matters? Like Steve in Siem Reap, she has the same crisis of confidence in Chicago. I know you guys blame the parents, but, trust me, it’s her.

For all of you. I’d like to point out that you lost your best teachers while we were there. I think of Praise, Heidy, and Yecenia, for example. Experienced, dedicated, politically and socially motivated, lifers. And the best at their jobs. How the fuck do you go out of your way to alienate and chase away three of the best teachers any school could want? People who are willing to live in Siem Reap for many years? Teachers who could have been your trainers and department heads. No respect. I’m a little more of an side-eyeing misanthrope than most, so you know I’m willing to bend but I knew what was coming. I could smell Steve’s festering disorder before I got to know him. As soon as he took over as Principal, I began emotional preparations for what I was sure was an inevitability. Of course, Steve. You were always under the suspicion that the teachers were conspiring against you. Don’t you know anything about managing people. If your first inclination is to see a conspiracy, you’ve got to take a step back and carefully consider you and your actions and attitude. You had so much false self-confidence, it killed you there. You’re getting what you deserve. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE STUDENTS? When I talk about Cambodia in the future, I won’t have anything good to say about Chicago and Pritzkers, but I will have nothing but glowing warmth and love for those children who are striving in spite of all the white assholes trying to insist they know how to best manage their futures. Maybe the school will one day become a place where they can choose their future, but let’s be honest about what it is now: a Pritzker showpiece and a safe place for you to take photos of the villagers.

Well, hello you guys. Hope you finally got what you’ve been looking for.

Introducing Dan and Karen Pritzker

The Providence schools, including Jay Pritzker Academy in Cambodia, are largely funded by Dan and Karen Pritzker, of the Hyatt Hotel Pritzker Family. Jay Pritzker Academy is 100% funded by them. No matter what unethical action JD takes, the Pritzkers are loyal to her. They have allowed her to fire multiple school leaders and teachers at JPA without warning, where there is no board of trustees. They believe she is talented and knows how to achieve results. 

When I met him and Karen, they were the nicest people, saying nice things to relate to me. What I since then realized about them is that they don't see us as people who have careers and money problems and lives. They see teachers as disposable income, and they see students as social experiments. They have paid people off (thousands of dollars, some an entire year's salary) after firing them unjustly. I still respect the fact that they want to use some of their money to do a "good thing," but their legacy won't amount to much if they place corrupt, ego-maniacal leaders in power and double down on them. Is that too intense? Not if you've met Jeanette or Steve!

From my time at one of the schools, I have documentation. Quotes from her, quotes from teachers who are terrified by her, quotes from other school leaders. I wish I recorded everything so I could have sound bytes, but how could I have known what would be said. I started the blog because the students and teachers who are at these schools live in fear—fear of being overheard by other teachers who are fond of “whistle blowing,” fear of getting fired with no due process, fear of hearing JD’s high heels as she comes down the hallway. This is a safe place to submit your story whether you are a current or past student/teacher but if no one feels safe, I will voice them for you. Also, for the eager, green teachers who are considering working there and Googling the schools at this very moment, consider yourself warned. The descriptions of PSM, JPA, and PECS are too good to be true.

Here’s a teaser:

“When you come to [PSM], you leave your first amendment rights at the door.” —Jeanette Dibella, in response to students trying to observe the GLSEN Day of Silence.

Introducing Jeanette Dibella (Copied from my old website)

This is a picture of the CEO of all three schools that follow the Providence Model, or are results of "The Providence Effect." What the schools boast and what actually happens inside are two very different things. 

Gotta start over

Jeanette has had my blogs shut down. I was being a little cheeky and used her name for the URL. She was not happy... If you google her name or her schools, my blog no longer shows up on the first page because she has created a deluge of blogs that advertise the schools with the same old descriptions. She even got reappointed as the CEO of JPA... to make it onto Yahoo News? So the Pritzkers can show Jeanette they will double down again on her leadership? I am not sure. Anyway, I feel flattered. Thanks Jeanette, for making me feel important!

Some former employees are writing me, telling me to "move on." You have to understand, it's not a matter of moving on. I'm not on this blog very often, and the most hits I get are from Jeanette and Steve, and those who work in leadership under them. In fact, I haven't been on for three weeks since I've been so busy at work. (During these three weeks, Jeanette had me shut down.) The reason I keep this blog is because of something Steve McCambridge used to say: We have a moral responsibility to JPA. Yes, that's true, although I think I interpreted his words differently. I need to warn teachers to stay away until the Pritzkers decide to make some real changes. They treat teachers like disposable labor, and they treat students like experiments. Until I hear of documented changes, I will keep writing.

Some readers tell me that I sound disgruntled. I would like to tell them that I am definitely disgruntled, and you would be also if you experienced what my colleagues and I did. Word on the street is, JPA had close to 100% turnover of expat teachers for the 2012-13 school year. Four teachers were fired or quit mid-year in 2012. I know of two students who were pushed out by Steve. They are planning to cut students dramatically.

Other readers are writing to offer me their stories. Happy to receive them and print them on this blog.

Note to Jeanette or Steve: If you have documented proof that you no longer do some of the things I've delineated on this blog, please contact me. If you want to discuss the points I've made and not send Jenn Sullivan to spout talking points about the school while mistakenly accusing a former teacher for writing this blog, please contact me. Really. The best way for me to get rid of this blog is to make changes, to be more ethical, to see how race factors into your schools with a critical lens, to care about the students and teachers more than your legacies. 

It has changed from www.jeanettedibella.wordpress.com to this one. I like blogger better anyway.