The Vicious, Cutthroat, Conniving Tactics of Becoming a Pre-K Teacher
Teachers are Sneaky and so is Tenure.
In my early 30s, I wanted to go to preschool.
At that time, the early aughts, preschool was one of the last sanctuaries of true learning where children, and their teachers, were permitted to actually play and explore and experiment at their own direction. Every other grade was trapped in a cycle of testing and studying for the test, testing and studying for the test, testing and studying for the test.
Pre-K was the last educational Shangri-La—and that’s where I wanted to be as a teacher.
But then who knew becoming a preschool teacher was going to be such an underhanded, conniving enterprise?
My problem was that A. Elementary only had three preschool positions and 100 teachers on staff.
The odds were against me. Not that every single teacher was dying to teach the four year olds, but enough were eyeing the three positions that it would be presumptuous of little ol’ me, so low on the teacher totem pole, to even try and manifest, “I want to teach preschool.”
Such a vision board at my school would be an insult to teacher seniority.
All three pre-k positions were occupied by older Japanese women with over twenty-plus years of teaching experience—Ms. Yasuhara, Ms. Isomoto, and, my very own beloved former kindergarten teacher, Ms. Watanabe (that is whole other story).
These women had a Yakuza-like hold on the grade level. They held so much more seniority over everyone that getting into pre-k was like trying to get onto the Supreme Court. One’s entire teaching career could pass in sad frustration just waiting for these colleagues to vacate their positions.
Señor Ity
This excruciating wait, however, is built into teaching.
It’s called tenure.
Seniority.
Younger teachers have to wait their turn, bide their time, earn their stripes, until they arrive at the point in their career where they have collected enough years and experience to finally choose, without contest or complaint or restriction, what grade they wish to teach. It’s a right earned through collective bargaining and professional patience.
Depending on the average level of tenure at one’s school, this waiting can take a few years…or geological eons.
Woe to those novice teachers who find themselves placed at a school with a teaching roster heavy with senior citizens who smile through dentures when they say, “Why would I ever retire, sonny-boy?”
Tenure is a system that is supposed to reward longevity and experience. But it can also exasperate new teachers’ excitement and thwart their professional ambitions.
However, as I mentioned in my last post, the other hard truth is that many unforeseen circumstances can occur during the school year and the whole situation deck around tenure can then be reshuffled.
In 2003, Ms. Isomoto lost a battle with cancer. Of course, the school was devastated. She was a much beloved educator and community member. It was a very sad, solemn day when she passed but, as I learned my first year of teaching, when teachers die the very next day of school continues on without missing so much as a beat. Schools run like Swiss locomotives.
Soon enough another very veteran teacher with high seniority took Ms. Isomoto’s spot and settled in for another thousand years of teaching preschool. I was never going to get my chance unless I became a vampire.
My hopes for teaching pre-k were pretty grim. Betting on another death to open up a spot seemed like a grotesque and macabre strategy for getting a chance to teach that grade level. Maybe I would have to leave my school and look for an early childhood education position elsewhere. However, even with that strategy there are no guarantees.
Then a sneaky, conniving loophole opened up for me, sort of.
Early on in my career, young little Mr. Villegas made a smart move that ended up paying off dividends in an unexpected way: I volunteered to be one of the two union representatives at my school.
Being union rep is a thankless, unpaid, volunteer position that leaves you open to dealing with teachers complaining about everything from not being allotted enough closet space (which is a non-contractual issue!!!) to protesting the number of English learners in their class (which can be contractual).
From reprimands to retirements, adverse administrators to petty fights between colleagues, the position can keep you distracted with extra work not directly related to your classroom teaching.
However, union rep is a necessary position that, when enmeshed well within a school, can help settle disputes, solve problems, and allocate resources fairly IF you’re paired alongside a capable and trustworthy and sane administrator.
There are always a hundred different situations going on in the background of a school besides simply the daily instruction and the lunch lady’s lunch count. The soap operas include internal district politics, contentious budgeting issues, extramarital affairs, professional rivalries, personal tragedies, divorces, side hustles, and, ultimately, every teacher playing the contentious game of Who Gets to Teach What When. Therefore, as union rep you often get to hear the latest and best chisme.
The position especially gives you privileged insight into something called The Matrix.
Don’t Die In the Matrix
At every school there is something called The Matrix. It’s an organizational chart listing all the available teaching positions for the upcoming year.
This list of classes (two fifth grades, three fourth grades, five third grades, etc…, for example) is determined by the District’s projected enrollment numbers for our school. It’s a living document that changes constantly.
In the early spring, schools often publish their Matrix for the following year.
It’s a very exciting time, almost like when Oscar nominations are announced.
You can feel the vibrating gossip begin to intensify as teachers get a look at all the teaching positions that will be available for the upcoming year and they begin to guess and take bets on who will land where.
Then on a selected day usually in the spring, according to their seniority (and sometimes other factors), teachers choose the grade level they will prefer to teach in the following year. If you’re numbers one through ten on the seniority list, you can pick whatever the hell you want.
If your lower on the list the selecting can get cutthroat. Teachers lie, cheat, and connive to get the grade level they want especially if threatened by another colleague’s choices. They pretend. They act. They try to influence other people’s choices. They barter. They make pacts with other teachers.
Although such maneuvering might seem petty the stakes are high because the Matrix affects people’s livelihoods. It affects where you work, your working conditions, your commute, sometimes even your pay. It can determine the quality not only of the next year of their life but even the trajectory of their careers.
Before the Matrix was released for the 2006-07 school year, Ms. Yasuhara, one of the trinity of Asian preschool teachers, secretly informed the principal and me, the union rep, that she was retiring—but she specifically instructed us that she DID NOT want anyone to know. She, basically, for personal reasons, wanted to “ghost” the school.
True to her wishes, the principal and I never said a word.
But this set up some elementary school palace intrigue.
Yasuhara was going to be leaving an empty, desirous spot, but I couldn’t say anything, and for real reals, I didn’t want to.
If I leaked word, then I would be giving a heads up for some other fool to request her spot. So, I kept my mouth shut like I was on a federal gag order.
The the day of the final class selection for the upcoming 2006-07 school year arrived in the spring of 2006. The principal and the union reps work together from the principal’s office summoning in teachers, like initiates into a cult, who do not receive their first choice.
Those teachers receive the chance to take one last glance at a blown-up poster of The Matrix and make their permanent selection. Once they peruse what’s still available, their final opportunity to change their minds passes, and they physically select what they want.
It’s like a game-show.
When teachers don’t get their first, second, or third choices because others have already selected them, the knives come out. I’ve been in the room to witness such desperateness.
As a teacher looks over the crowded-up Matrix you can see their eyeballs moving rapidly back and forth trying to find something desirable, a grade level for them to land in. They are making silent chess moves, calculations in their head, considering: What kids will I get? What room will I be in? Who will I have to work with? Will I be evaluated next year? What is the assessment schedule?
It’s very stressful.
When those calculations go awry and nothing is working out to their satisfaction, some teachers become agitated; they threaten to leave, transfer, look for other options elsewhere, some even attempt to throw colleagues and friends under the bus by interrogating whether those teachers hold the appropriate credentials to teach certain classes.
“But he doesn’t even hold a CLAD!” is something they might say to the principal in private as they try to undermine their best friend by questioning his/her certifications.
In 2006, the three preschool slots were located at the top of the chart.
Everyone who came in to take a glance at the Matrix assumed that Ms. Yasuhara, Ms. Watanabe, and Ms. Ong (Ms. Isomoto’s replacement) still occupied those teaching positions. Those women had so much seniority, their preferences were widely known, and had taught so long why even bother to look at the top of the chart? They were immovable objects.
With bated breath, I stood there observing teachers who I knew wanted the preschool position, but not noticing that it was available, pass over the available spot and select other grades. They never looked at the top of the chart.
I have never been so quiet in my life. Sweating. Hurry up, hurry up! I shouted in my mind. It was exactly like that moment in Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure when Pee Wee, dressed as a nun, has located his beloved bike on a movie set and is waiting for the right moment to zip it away.
Then when my turn finally, finally arrived to select a position, BAM! I took that shit like it was a free serving of guacamole at Chipotle.
I had insider knowledge and I used it like Martha Stewart trading stocks.
I officially became a preschool teacher! I did it!
I was so happy.
Was it fair? Probably not. Technically, I hadn’t done anything wrong. And plus, I considered it compensation for years of free labor as the union rep.
Every teacher likes to parrot the axiom “knowledge is power” but most people in this world don’t act on that saying.
Because if they did, they would deliberately put themselves in positions to acquire more knowledge. They would be curious and truth-seeking, forging relationships and asking questions, going the extra mile. Instead, people often indulge in conspiracy theories, gossip, and complaining. If they really believed that knowledge is power, they would act exactly like the students they say they want in their classes. But most people just talk a good talk.
If a staff member really believed that knowledge is power, there would be an actual competition for the position of union rep at schools because union rep gives you access to more knowledge.
But there never was a competition for those roles at A. Elementary. No one wanted those positions except me and a couple of other teachers.
Our slim reward was that we always had a head’s up to what was coming down the line at our school.
I saw Yasuhara’s retirement coming down the pipeline because I had placed myself in the version of an occupational lookout, and I reaped the reward.
I became a preschool teacher…for exactly one whole year.
Of course, the following year, teachers who had been none the wiser the year before wizened up and, with enough seniority behind them, they bumped me out of that position faster than you can say, “Take that, you sneaky bitch!”
I was readily ousted from preschool by Ms. Marshall.
I had to return to kindergarten, that grade level now being overrun by too many assessments and too much austerity, making for an education experience summed up by: more work, less help, less play, same pay.
The preschool dream was over, for now.