ROGER4314
Been Called "Flash" Since I Was A Kid!
The first year I taught in Texas, my tiny program budget was exhausted in January. After the school year ended, my principal told me he had to cut my budget. I handed him the keys and told him that I would not run the program out of my pocket any more.
He was a great guy and from that day for 5 more years, he built the budget so I could build a quality program.
He retired and the budget slashes began. The new administrators and the ones who came later, cut the budget to nothing and every year, I plugged $1000-1500 into the program from my pocket.
In fact, they needed more academic classrooms so we were forced out of one of our shop buildings in October. The nasty part was that maintenance didn't make that move. For 4 weeks, my students and I were required to cram the program equipment into one remaining building. That was 4 weeks off task, off curriculum to advance a strategy that was clearly preferential to academic classes and harmful to "shop" students.
How the Hell do Administrators justify that? We were scheduled for new textbooks twice and both times, we were denied the texts in favor of academic class needs. I'd wager the football team never went without helmets!
Summed up, I ran that program out of my pocket for years. If you ever doubted that teachers have to buy supplies out of their own pay, you got the straight story here!
Flash
He was a great guy and from that day for 5 more years, he built the budget so I could build a quality program.
He retired and the budget slashes began. The new administrators and the ones who came later, cut the budget to nothing and every year, I plugged $1000-1500 into the program from my pocket.
In fact, they needed more academic classrooms so we were forced out of one of our shop buildings in October. The nasty part was that maintenance didn't make that move. For 4 weeks, my students and I were required to cram the program equipment into one remaining building. That was 4 weeks off task, off curriculum to advance a strategy that was clearly preferential to academic classes and harmful to "shop" students.
How the Hell do Administrators justify that? We were scheduled for new textbooks twice and both times, we were denied the texts in favor of academic class needs. I'd wager the football team never went without helmets!
Summed up, I ran that program out of my pocket for years. If you ever doubted that teachers have to buy supplies out of their own pay, you got the straight story here!
Flash