Late starts are weird days. They never feel real, students don’t act like they usually do–it just doesn’t go the way other days do. It started with me walking in the library and being told to “pick a number,” from a person holding a bowl with papers in it.
“Eight,” I said, without taking a paper out of the bowl.
The person holding the bowl said, “Pick another number.”
“Six,” I said, still without paper.
The person holding the bowl of papers asked, “Can’t you do anything right?” or something along those lines.
I took a piece of paper that had the number 8 on it.
And so it started. It ended later with a higher-up calling me “Stover.” Not Tom. Not Mr. Stover. And not the first time this has happened.
Today, in our WASC meeting, we read a chapter about data, and how much we analyze it, and how there’s this data out there, and then the data that the data is covering is data in itself. There was much to be said and written about data.
We don’t look much at data. Perhaps that will be a WASC problem.
But one of the things that caught my eye in the chapter we read was talk of all the people that had left North High in the last two years, or around the time we had our last WASC visit. The chapter did not give definitive data on all the people we have lost at North High, so I decided to pull a list from the top of my head. I’m sure I’m missing some people here, and I apologize, but the list is fairly long for a school with fewer than a 100 staff members.
Grace Pak no longer teaches Korean.
We lost two wrestling coaches in the last year–one made the papers.
Each year we roll in another volleyball coach.
Victoria Perez did something with Tech.
Regina Wang was here for Spanish?
Pagan was here for a year. Adam Pike maybe two. Josh Lay a few. Amanda Dunn didn’t last a quarter. Kamura stayed a year. Deanne Garriott was there a year. Someone named Bui. There was a Woo.
Bob Brack taught Calculus for around 10 years. Seth Miller replaced him and lasted a year.
Heather Brooke taught many things, but kicked ass on the Psych AP. She was there 10 years.
Cheli Nye taught math and was an Assistant Principal. She worried about advancement, so she left. Within a year, she is principal at Malibu High.
Michelle England taught English and shared caramels with me.
Chris Johnson was our custodian and site supervisor.
Jeff Phillips was our site supervisor.
Kim Till was a secretary for Chris and Jeff.
Isabel Inn was the principal’s secretary.
Diane Fox made sure everything ran smoothly with scheduling and inputting students into the system.
Danielle Sibley was all over the place, last checking in as Counseling secretary.
Vivien Morita was a secretary in ASB. Around 20 years?
Kevin May taught psychology and history.
Jorj Benone taught reading, English, and Theater. 10 plus years.
Matt Hall was our College and Career person.
Christine MacInnis was head counselor. Around 10 years.
Jenna Murata was the ELD Coordinator and put tasty treats in our mailboxes. Many years.
Marc Pioch was the ASB director and taught in the social science department. Twenty years plus.
Lawrence Hom taught social studies and was an assistant principal. Twenty years plus.
Silvia Cuevas taught science. Close to ten years?
Kendra Parsons taught math. 10 years?
Rick Weber taught Spanish and might have been there 20 years. Maybe more.
Brian Ormsby was athletic director and taught English and special ed. He was there a long time.
Mitzi Stover, my wife, lasted 21 years. She taught almost every English class. I know why she left, as do other people.
I don’t know why some of the others are no longer at our school. Some of the one-and-done teachers never crossed paths with me. But I do know this is an incomplete list, that I have just forgotten people in my haste to make a fairly accurate piece of data. Because this is data. Is it data that is similar to many schools? I mean, do other schools have such turnover in the last few years, or is this a little excessive?
Once again, I don’t know, but data matters. Is it important to know why these teachers left? Is it important to know why they are no longer at North (for some didn’t just leave)? Are they still teaching? Are they in education? Did they retire?
Yes, there were newer teachers, and the national data on new teacher turnover was illustrated by some of the names I mentioned. But these are former employees that were there for many years and, in the last few years, are no longer at North High. 40ish people out of a staff of a 100ish.
Sorry if I left a name off the list. If your name does appear and I have offended you by putting it on a public post, please message me and I will remove it. I just wanted to give more support to a claim, and names make it a little more real.