Setting the Record Straight

My last post hurt someone's feelings. Not what I wrote, but some of the comments. I want to be clear. In no way did I (or the comments) mean in any way that teachers aren't like the most awesome people ever. Seriously, I bow down to you teachers. It is not in my genetic make up to hang out with 26 children all day long and hope for them to learn something. I really don't know how you do it. That is why I am not a teacher of children.
That being said, like any profession, there are the regular ones, the best ones, and the ones you just pray quit. Here in lies my problem. Those in which you wish would quit, how is it that they get to stay being teachers? I'm going to tell you a story, sit back, relax, I've got nothing to do but drink my wine and tell you about two teachers. In all honesty there are a million other things I should be doing but my beds really comfy and I think my laptop missed me today. And I care. Anyway, so on the one hand we have Saige's fifth grade teacher. He is the one all the kids pray for the whole time they are in the school. They are sitting, waiting, wishin' ( you believe in superstion) that when their time comes they will get him. He's a legend. He's fun and fair and understanding and he cares so much about the kids it's incredible. At back to school night after hearing him talk I was ready to go back to fifth grade. He loves his job and I have the greatest respect for him.
Of course not everyone gets him. There are other teachers and their classes seem happy with them too. They're fine.
And then there is the other end of the spectrum. The teacher no parent wants their child to get. The teacher who's reputation has been bad for years, who has been passed around from school to school but for some reason can't be fired. Can't. Be. Fired. Although, I'll just say it, they suck. Suck in the worst of ways, don't teach, kids don't learn, scream, no control. Suck with a capital S U C K. That's who Chase got in second grade. I was willing to give it a try though, I thought, "Chase is a really easy kid. He'll be fine." At first I tried to ignore all the gossip because I didn't think there was anything I could do about it. The principal at the time would not, under any circumstances change kids classes. We gave it a couple months. At the beginning of November we had had enough. His work was being marked wrong. She missed his misspelled spelling words. She didn't even look at his journal, his tests never came home. The whole thing was pathetic. Add to that Saige's room was right across the hall and she told me she could hear Chase's teacher screaming all day long. This doesn't sit well with me. I asked Chase what he did when she did that because he doesn't like screaming. "I just stare out the window and think about leaving." Oh. My. God. He's seven. I asked one of my very closest friends (Twist), who used to teach how I should handle it. She said, "You have to be his advocate Amy, no one else will." There are more stories about this teacher than I will go into but the long of the short of it is Marc and I did everything in our power to get him out of there. I had other parents in the class tell me they were just, "writing the year off." Yeah. Not me. I need him to learn something.He likes expensive dinners. He needs a profession. That will probably require being able to read and write. We wrote letters, we got a lawyer, we made a fuss. We must have looked like the biggest a-hole parents out there. I got told it wouldn't be fair to just move him. Really? Then why the hell is she a teacher? I didn't really care if it was fair, this was my kid. They asked us to give them until after Thanksgiving vacation and they would resolve it. We did. When break was over there was a brand new teacher in the room. The old one had retired. I felt a little bad, I did, but what choice did I have? Really? What would you have done?