We Keep Us Safe

On the morning of January 8th I got up and stumbled, exhausted, into my bathroom. It was still dark out- it is at 5am in New York in the winter.

Hitting the lights, I leaned over the sink and stared at myself in the mirror. The reflection was not kind. Yesterday’s makeup, Cheerios for dinner, and a night of no sleep will do that to a 44 year old. Haggard. Haggard describes what looked back at me.

And I was tired, so goddamned tired, I thought about calling into work.

I had spent the night reading, witnessing, the murder of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agents. Watching as minutes later ICE agents descended on Minnesota schools, discharging chemical sprays at point blank.

Watching videos, listening to audio of school personnel try to herd masses of children away from agents. Away from danger.

I say I spent the night because I spent the day with immigrant children.

Spent the day silencing, then actively ignoring the alerts popping up on my phone. Spent the day changing my lessons, keeping my students away from their computers, worried they would panic if they saw schools being raided and women shot in the face. I spent the day reminding what to do if they are approached by “police”.

Don’t run. Hands up. Stay calm. Know a phone number. Wait for an adult you know. Practice these words “I want to talk to my parents. I am a child, please call my parents.”

I spent the day lying. I know that. The videos coming out of Minnesota prove that.

I am lying because I know that bodies respond to fear- not brains. I know that no matter how much you “know” or “prepare” what to do in an emergency, fear hijacks you and your thoughts and body are unreliable.

I spent the day being the calm I hoped could make the difference between life and death-knowing that it never is.

And I spent the night holding the weight of that lie.

The face in my mirror on the morning of January 8th was one I didn’t recognize. I stared at my reflection wondering how many teachers, how many parents, were doing the same.

How many of us, in the pre dawn moments, wash away yesterday’s make up and rebuild the facade piece by piece.

We wake up children, make breakfast, and find lost water bottles. We talk calmly and age appropriately about the everyday violence and cruelty we see playing out on the national stage. We pretend that violence and cruelty are uncommon, when we know they are anything but.

We send our children out the door with the faith that other adults will take care of them, knowing that schools in Minnesota have gone to virtual learning through February because they are unsafe from our federal government. We pretend that it won’t happen to us. We lie to our children and to ourselves.

As the bus pulls away we give ourselves over to those lies. Alone, where we don’t have to perform, we let ourselves feel our powerlessness, our pain.

I stand at the door until the snow drives me back in. There are children besides mine counting on me. Immigrant children, Black children, American children. The children of the mothers standing at a door like mine, and I will not let them down.

It’s taken two hours, but my facade is in place. The vulnerable woman who stared back at me this morning does not exist. In her place stands the adult that will keep your kids safe. This woman is someone strong. She is fierce and unrelenting. She is the adult who will be the calm and the love that can mean the difference between life and death.

As I grab my keys and head out the door fear whispers through the trees. “Who are you to think you can stand against something so big, so powerful?”

Only now do I smile and feel like myself, because I know something fear doesn’t. Real power isn’t force, isn’t infallible. It isn’t hate filled speeches, police violence, or even the law.

Real power is hope. Messy, gritty, bloody, haggard hope. Hope is the lie that keeps breakfast on the table and smiles on kids faces. Hope keeps cameras filming while women are murdered and teachers are pepper sprayed.

I am no one. I am not the president, the mayor, the police. But I don’t have to be, because they don’t keep us safe- we do.

Accept the Show

These past few weeks I’ve been asked many versions of the same question… “How are we going to survive this insanity?”. This is quickly followed by “How are you not wallowing in a pit of despair?“.

My answers may help some of you, maybe they won’t. Either way I’ll be dropping links to the organizations and activities I have found helpful in the comments.

For 20 years I have worked for an extremely dysfunctional government system. My teaching position is 100% federally funded, so I have first hand experience with multiple levels of governmental incompetence.

Every time something insane or illegal happens at work, my husband is outraged. He normally gets loud and shouts “How can that happen?”

After all these years, I think it’s cute he still asks.

My answer is always the same- “This is the reality I live in.”

I live in a system that counts on people, especially women, following authority, even when we know it is wrong or harmful. I live in a system that bogs me down with menial tasks so I am too tired to say no. One that gaslights professionals into second guessing their expertise and worth. I live in a system that seems so hopeless many of us can’t do it anymore and there is a national teacher shortage.

Paychecks don’t arrive, healthcare is taken away with an “accidental” click of a button. New leaders are chosen with new agendas, but no one tells us what they are. Or maybe there was an email with some links embedded in the platitudes? Maybe not.

Nothing is real, everything is a show. Something bad happened? No it didn’t. This is not the droid you’re looking for.

So when I say I understand your confusion, your exhaustion, your anger— I mean it.

I started my career with those exact same feelings.

I spent my days quietly doing the right thing, hoping the ship would right itself. After a while, I was too disappointed, too tired, and too upset to do much.

Then one day I realized something.

There is power in the show— and the liars, cheats, and thieves aren’t the only one who can wield it.

The rest is history.

I’m proof that you can stand against a government agency and win. You can say no. You can do what is right and dare them to make you a martyr. You can hold the line even when you are confused and afraid.

How are we going to survive the next few months? How will we find our footing in a world that makes no sense?

We accept the show.

Breathe in the chaos.

You may not feel like you have any political power, but you have one of the most powerful tools available- your voice, your story.

Humans are hardwired to react to stories. Pick the issue that is most important to you and tell your story.

Tell it on social media, to your congress people, to the news, or just the coworker asking “How are you.”

You control the narrative. You control the show.

Democracy dies in the darkness.

The stage is yours. Use it.

By the Time You Read This a Child Will Have Died

By the time you read this, a child will have died. 

Of course, he doesn’t matter to most people. 

He’s 16 years old and is a child with disabilities.

He’s Black and poor and his mother is sick.

He attends an urban school in a city ranked #1 in the country for child poverty.

When he dies there will be no outrage, no news stories. No one will blink an eye.

                          ——————

So long ago, years now, this child started acting “off”.  

He would watch disturbing content on his computer- asking about fires and burning buildings.

He’d act like he was going to jump out of windows and rip things off of the wall. 

He’d say he heard voices and wander aimlessly.

He did this at school, so his teachers alerted everyone necessary. All the higher ups. 

Something was happening with this child and he needed help.

We got back “There’s nothing we can do.”

So we’d redirect, cajole, and document “just in case”.

We’d watch and we’d worry. 

                            ——————-

Today he still hears voices. He now hurts himself and others. 

He runs. 

The technical term for this is eloping. He elopes all day long. Sometimes we can chase him and find him. 

Sometimes we can’t. 

He elopes from home, at night, out the second story window, without shoes or a coat. 

It is snowing. 

The police call the school to see if we can find him. They can’t. 

We can’t either.

Sometimes a stranger finds him and brings him to a hospital. Somehow he keeps getting released. 

He is unwell. 

He comes to school unwell. He hits teachers and students again. 

He runs.

Sometimes the other children, who are also students with disabilities, are too upset to continue. Sometimes they lash out too.

We don’t teach. We can’t. We just survive. 

We calm, we love, we say “It will be ok.”

We lie.

We call security and the district, mental health services and unions. We call friends of friends trying to get someone to listen to us when we say this child is in crisis. 

No one cares. At least… they don’t care enough. 

He is a piece of paper among many. A problem to pass off. He doesn’t matter to most people. 

We are scared for him.

We sit in our cars at lunch and cry and rage at the brokenness of a system that will leave this child on the street. We pay therapists to teach us how to cope. 

We get up the next day and try again. We tell ourselves we will make a difference. 

We lie.

And the boy?  

His mother has died, he’s in foster care now. He’s been kicked out of at least 3 emergency homes. 

He hears voices. He runs. 

The hospital doesn’t want him. Day programs don’t either. Alternative schools don’t have room.

He is Daniel Prude and the man growing cold on the park bench that you hurry by. He is “Not able to stay here.” “Doesn’t meet our qualifications.” and “That’s not my job.”

So he comes to school unwell. 

He runs.

                  ————————— 

By the time you read this a child will have died. 

He’s been dying for months, his body and mind screaming for help. 

His death comes when he runs into the street, or when he says the wrong thing to the wrong person. 

It comes at the hands of the police or self medicating with drugs. 

It comes quietly in the night, out a second story window, in the cold with no shoes. 

No one but his teachers notice. 

We cry in the parking lot and rage that no one cared…at least not enough.

By the time you read this, a child will have died. 

His teachers are dying too, knowing we all killed him. 

Enough is Enough I was Sexually Assaulted at Work

Yesterday I texted a fellow union representative to ask how she was doing. I had heard there was a pretty big assault at her building and wanted to lend support. I was stunned when she replied. “I am not ok, I was sexually assaulted.” I told her that I would do anything I could to help her, and offered my blog as a way to share what happened. These are her words. This is her story.

On Friday, October 8, 2021, I was sexually assaulted at work. 

After calling 911 repeatedly, reporting in person to the Public Safety Building, and waiting 7 hours to file my police report, I’ve been told that it’s now missing. 

I was failed by my workplace and again by my city. 

I have nowhere left to turn. 

This is my story. 

I am a high school English teacher in Rochester, New York. 

I work in an urban environment, which really means I work with children who are victims of de facto segregation and generational poverty. 

I’m going say it, since no one else will, I work in an area where gang violence is prevalent. 

On the day of my attack I was preparing my materials for my next class when one of my students, a 14-year-old 9th grader, ran into my classroom and hid behind the teacher desk. 

He was clearly afraid of something and came to my room because everyone knows my room is a safe place.

Seconds later, a student I didn’t know and had never seen before, came flying in, jumped on my student, and began punching him. 

This isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed violence in my school. I daresay we’ve almost become desensitized to it. 

But, I’m a mother and my students are my kids in every sense of the word. There is a maternal instinct that takes over. It is an urgency to protect your own and I immediately acted on that. 

Fearing for my students’ safety, and before I even knew what I was doing, I intervened, separating the students. 

The attacker was yelling and screaming. Threatening. 

None of this is new or shocking. Teachers in many schools around the country work in schools like mine. 

We try our best to be heard, reach our students, and protect them.

On the day I was attacked my best weapon was my “teacher voice”, and I used it. 

I used it to get assailant out of my classroom and ensure no further harm would come to my students.

After the assailant exited the room, I left to find help. 

My room is at the end of a hallway, so I could only go in one direction, the same way the aggressor just went.

All I kept thinking was that I needed to get help. 

There were dozens of students in the hallway.

 The attacker, still enraged, turned around and spit on me. They hit another adult. 

They spit on me again and then shoved me. 

I repeatedly told them not to put their hands on me, to stop spitting on me, and that I was not following them, but looking for security.

The students took out their phones and began recording. 

I had my attacker on one side and a wall of students on the other. 

I got lost in the middle, carried along in a wave of rage, fear and excitement.

I had nowhere to go and no help. 

It was then that I was sexually assaulted. 

My attacker placed both of their hands on my breasts, fondled me for approximately 30 seconds, and then shoved me and spit on me.

They did it again, this time for at least a minute. 

I finally screamed at them, “I told you not to touch my breasts!” and attempted to push their hands off of me. 

However, now there were a hundred students… so many filming… and I couldn’t get space to move my arms enough to push them away.

Help finally arrived. A security guard had been called. I explained to him that the student placed their hands on me and needed to go to the Principal’s office.

But, the student had not been restrained, allowing them to assault me again, punching me twice in the side of the head. 

Then, all hell broke loose. A large brawl began, involving some of my students and some of the friends of the student who hit me.

 I froze. I couldn’t move. 

Luckily a fellow teacher physically shielded me and moved me to the main office. 

Afterwards I called 911 to file a police report. 

At 12:20 they took my call, but no one came.

I called 911 again at 12:50. No one came. 

At 3:00 I decided to go to the Public Safety Building to try and file a police report there. 

The officer on duty instructed me to call 911 again and ask to speak with the Clinton Precinct Sergeant, which I did at 3:15. 

No one came. 

At 5:15 I was instructed again to call 911 and ask to speak this time to a Lieutenant at the Clinton Precinct.

Finally, at 6:00 pm on Friday night, as I waited at the Public Safety Building, officers from the Clinton Precinct arrived to take my report. 

After taking my report they acknowledged that it took a long time to get to me. 

“Well you know, you guys did pull the Police officers out of the schools so…”

What they didn’t say I heard loud and clear. 

Somehow, because my School Board voted to remove police officers from our schools, I was at fault for my own attack. 

Stunned, I left. 

I am enraged that I was treated as somehow “less” of a victim by the police because of things I have no control over. 

I am a teacher, I don’t make policies, I don’t place or remove police in school buildings. 

There were hundreds of students surrounding me in the hallway as the physical assault and the forcible touching happened. Many of them recorded the incidents. 

I am absolutely humiliated that footage of me being sexually groped by a student is making the rounds on Instagram and Tiktok. 

Today I was informed that the Rochester City School District decided not to long term suspend my assailant. They may be back in the classroom tomorrow. 

I have so many thoughts on how and why we as a city, as a society, got here…but no one in power is listening. 

Today I decided that someone needed to hear my story. That I will not be denied basic human dignity at my workplace. 

I’m asking you to hear me, hear teachers when they are crying out for help. 

I was sexually assaulted at work and deserve to be heard. 

Corrine Mundorff

Rochester, N.Y

On the Eve of Our Return to School

On the eve of my daughter’s return to school, I read another story, kiss her once more, tell her “Everything is going to be ok.” , and drink Pepto-bismol straight from the bottle.

On the eve of my return to school, I organize my backpack, plan how to eat lunch in my car, and practice saying “We’ll be ok.” in the languages of my students. 

On the eve of our return to school, I don’t believe myself. 

On the eve of our return, I flip through a photo album from another 1st day 13 years ago. It’s an album from my first day teaching in Tanzania. 

I run my finger over the class photo stopping on each teen marred by polio, measles, mumps, the plague, iron and iodine deficiency. I remember the vaccinations and boosters I needed to teach there, because I was teaching in a “virus rich environment.”

On the eve of my return, I think of those girls, how they marveled that I didn’t know anyone with polio. Didn’t know anyone who had lost a child. That vaccines were easily and freely available, and that children get them to go to school.

How they listened in disbelief when I told them iron filings were added to cereal and iodine to salt, all to stop children from getting sick. 

How they thought that the United States was simply amazing, because it cares SO MUCH about our children . 

On the eve of my daughter’s return, I remember that’s not true.

That she will be returning to a virus rich environment with only a mask to protect her. 

I drink more Pepto.

On the eve of my return, I work with local resettlement groups, preparing to welcome refugees from Afghanistan. 

I sort supplies and print out welcome letters in Farsi and Pashto. I think about their grief. 

I compartmentalize. 

On the eve of my daughter’s return, I remind myself that 89% of eligible people in her school district are vaccinated. 

And remember that only about 10% are in mine.

I shake myself, see the time. It’s late.

I walk around, check backpacks and turn off lights, all the while repeating “It will be ok. It will be ok.”

On the eve of our return to school, I lie.

Heroes

My daughter and I laying yellow roses on Susan B. Anthony’s grave, in our pantsuits, during the 2016 election.

A few days ago, as we cast our votes for the 2020 election, my normally reserved and unflappable partner was pretty much a wreck. 

As he wrung his hands and talked about the possible demolish of our democracy, I was unusually silent. “What is going on with you?” he asked. “Why are you so calm?”.

I am a fighter. 

It’s partly nature and partly nurture. 

As a child of the 80’s, living in a rural area,  I grew up with functioning alcoholism as a key component of my community. 

It wasn’t until I decided to pursue teaching that I realized that growing up in such an environment turned me into an archetype. 

I am a hero. 

I try to fix things. I try to bring normalcy to traumatic situations by engaging in reformation tactics. 

So you see, it was more than strange that I had been so quiet during this election cycle. 

Being the hero led me to pull away from my rural, conservative hometown and throw myself into “issues” that I believed I could help fix. 

I moved to a city and studied, through literature and first hand, all of the ways the white patriarchy oppresses people around the world. 

I tried to become an ally to everyone all at once.

I failed…a lot. 

The more I failed, the more I opened my eyes to the work that needed to be done, not only in the grand scheme of the United States, but inside of me. 

I am used to failing. I am used to losing. It happens all of the time in the cycle of addiction. You see, the hero takes these failures and turns them into the will to DO MORE. To fix more.

It’s one of the things that I believe makes me excel in my teaching. 

There is a certain hope that lives in children who have watched family members get sober that is extraordinarily powerful. 

We believe.

That belief also makes the disappointment of relapse hurt much, much more. It rattles our identity and often throws us into deep, dark places that are hard to claw our way out of.

I learned long ago to tuck away my hope, and instead, march forever forward.

Being a hero means protecting your heart. 

Then came the 2016 election. 

For the first time in a long time, I let my unbridled enthusiasm loose.

I believed. 

 I believed in the goodness of people.

 I believed that my fellow Americans could not vote for a man who was at best, a bully. 

I believed that if America could elect a Black man, that the country was less prejudiced on a whole than when I was a child.

I believed that an educated, experienced candidate was a benefit to our country. 

I believed that it was time for women to take their place in the White House. 

But my America relapsed. 

My America failed me.

Not only did it fail me, but it abused me. 

Just like drugs or alcohol, it loosened the tongues of hateful hearts around the country. 

Just like drugs or alcohol, it helped give people an excuse to cause physical violence to the weak and the oppressed. 

Just like drugs or alcohol, it created chaos in everyday life. 

So, as my husband, and many of my (white) friends wring their hands, get angry, “can’t believe people would vote for this hate again.” and get sick over the vote count, I can’t muster the strength.

 My heart and my hope has been locked away for too long now, not because I march forward as the hero, but because I’ve needed to survive.

This realization sits heavy with me. 

Though I can’t be sure, I think that I was able to hold on to my hope a lot longer than my Black and brown brothers and sisters. 

They’ve had to survive a lot longer than me.

Tonight and tomorrow we’ll watch as the mail in votes are counted in key states.

I believe we’ll see a glimmer of childlike hope as America sobers to the binge of destruction the past four years have caused.

But I fear, even then, we’ve lost too much. 

With every assault against women, LGTBQ and Black and Brown Americans, some of our heroes fall, not because they are beaten, but because they need to survive. 

Rebuilding America will take more than this Presidential vote. 

It will take a real life hero- and they’re in short supply.

Peace, 

Kelly

An Open Letter to My Governor About ReOpening School Buildings

Dear Andrew Pallotta and Governor Andrew Cuomo,

This is my daughter Lily.

This is her Kindergarten class photo.

She’s 5 in this picture. She doesn’t wear glasses.

I don’t know where she got that head bow.

Her Daddy gets her ready for school.

Initially, he was in big trouble when I saw this picture.

But look at her smile.

Lily LOVES school.

She loves taking the bus, even if it means a 40 minute ride, instead of a 5 minute walk.

She loves science and crafts and getting messy.

As you can probably tell from this picture, she’s a bit of a handful.

She gets a lot of “red notes” home.

Once, she drew a circle around her eye with a black marker.

Another time she pulled the emergency alarm on the bus because she got excited that she could read the words “pull down”.

Sometimes she lays down in gym class because “The teacher makes us run in circles for no reason.”

But look at that smile.

Lily didn’t do well during crisis school.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Her teachers were awesome and I’m a teacher too.

But she’s in Kindergarten. She is not made to sit in front of a computer. She’s not made to do school at home.

And to be honest, I’m made to teach Romeo and Juliet, not how to learn to read.

I want her to go back to school.

She wants to go back to school.

But look at that smile.

As day after day ticks by, I have become increasingly convinced that no school district has the capacity to maintain a safe environment for children to return to face to face instruction. There are just too many logistical problems to come up with any sort of safe or equitable solution.

And so, I told my little girl she wasn’t going back to school in the fall. That there wasn’t enough science for it to be safe.

We talked about the things she would miss from school.

She misses her teachers and her principal. She misses “choice time” and “even a little math”.

Ironically, she misses gym class the most.

Being a parent means that you’re always second guessing yourself, worrying that you’re doing the right thing, the best thing for your child.

I’m sure a month or two in, I’ll be begging my elementary teacher friends for help.

I’m sure I will drink too much coffee and let her eat ice cream for breakfast.

I’m sure there will be horrible days when both of us end up in tears.

But sending her back to school is a risk I’m not willing to take.

Because my world is nothing without that smile.

I’m writing this because I want you to take this decision away from parents.

I want you to postpone all face to face instruction until we have 0 new cases of Covid for 14 days or a vaccine.

I want you to recognize that no school district can provide a safe environment at this time.

I want you to value my daughter’s life.

Governor, in the beginning of this pandemic you talked about your mother- how she isn’t expendable. Even though I don’t like you that much, that day you won me over.

Maybe it’s because I, too, am Italian American and you sound like my family.

Maybe it’s because my Italian grandfather is 98 and I pictured him while you were talking.

Maybe it’s because the truth is no one should be considered expendable.

There are no acceptable student or teacher deaths, Governor and Union President, not when we can work together to prevent them.

Look at the picture. Look at her smile.

My child isn’t expendable.

No child is.

Thank you for your time.

Kelly

#onlywhenitssafe

Thoughts on Looting, from a Looter Herself

When I was 25 I worked for a horrible company.

 The CEO was, and still is, a bullying, screaming narcissist. His entire business model was fraudulent and was based on using the sexuality of young girls to “sell” his product. 

If that didn’t work, the young girls were encouraged to lie and even steal the business target’s official letterheads so that they could be “pressured” by fake higher ups. 

They have been sued for this countless times, all over the US, but they have the money to throw at lawsuits and are still operating. 

They are still preying on the young, who need their first resume padding job. Who are given bonuses and cruises and free drinks, while old, white men grope at their breasts.

Why am I telling you this right now? 

Because when I was 25 and working at that hellhole, I participated in looting. 

I had worked there for a little more than a year.

I sat through weekly company meetings where the CEO screamed, spit flying, that we were shit, and not thankful for the job he gave us. 

Meetings where he spewed that he was single handedly making Rochester an amazing city to work and live in. Where he paraded the young, scantily dressed, heavily makeup-ed, sales girls and plied them with compliments and “hugs”.

I was disgusted, demeaned, and knew it was wrong. 

But, I need a job. I made enough to cover my student loans and housing and not much else. I ate bread and tomatoes a lot.

I stayed because I wasn’t strong enough at the time to stand up for myself or leave, and I loathed myself for it.

That year there was a holiday party. It was really just an excuse for the old, white men at the top of this scheme to get drunk, high, and take advantage of their employees.

 It was an excuse to feel powerful and benevolent. 

As the night wore on and the liquor (and cocaine) flowed, the CEO announced it was time for him to “give out presents”.

We had all been given a raffle ticket with a number at the beginning of the night and would be able to win something in the pile of gifts that was rolled out. 

The gifts included new phones, computers, cash, and other smaller items. Once your number was called, you picked a wrapped gift, it could be a laptop, it could be a toaster. 

After trying to read three raffle tickets, it became obvious that the CEO was too drunk and high to see. He threw the tickets away and just started bellowing the names of his favorites- the young, exploited, and “beautiful”.

There must have been 300 employees at that event, many of whom were like me, “regular people”, the ones who did the real work after the favorites conned the money out of the targets. 

The ones who had to produce a “product” we knew was bullshit. The ones who never got a free drink, a raise, a cruise. 

The ones who knowingly propped up a sexist, racist, narcissist because we felt we had no other choice. 

We watched those men give away money, and items we could never afford, to the same few people over and over again.

 Finally, someone snapped. 

A guy in the crowd yelled “That’s my number!” and walked up and grabbed an iPhone. 

And us regular, hardworking, folk? We followed that first guy. 

We followed him because we were indignant. We were angry. We were tired of literally watching a rigged game. 

Me? I followed him because deep down I was dying inside, hating myself for not being strong enough to stop him. For not being strong enough to leave.

I looted because I felt I DESERVED IT. 

As I was leaving, I looked at what I had stolen, what I had so deserved, what had made me feel that just for a moment, I was powerful.

It wasn’t a toaster, but it was close. 

I was at once elated and ashamed with what I was doing, so I dropped what I had looted right before I left the “party”. 

I’ve never forgotten that job and the place it brought me to.

 How it felt to be trodden upon so heavily, and for so long that I felt completely justified in stealing Christmas presents. 

To be honest I still do. 

I worked that job for a little more than a year and it brought me to a place in which I was enraged enough to loot.

I’m telling you this so you’ll remember my story the next time someone tries to tell you how wrong it is for outraged people of color to take to the streets. 

How I felt after a year, when they’ve endured more than 400 years of the rigged game that is systemic racism and oppression.

I’m telling you this because maybe now you’ll understand that it’s not about “stealing clothes” or “hurting their own communities”. 

And maybe you’ll remember my story and pause before you share your white opinions on how Black and Brown people are expressing their rage.

 

My Story Matters- I was Assaulted at Work

On April 10, 2019 I was assaulted at work.

I was seated when my attacker became agitated at my colleague, stood up, put both hands on me and pushed me. As I stood up, I was then slapped in the face.

When my colleague called for help it took 17 minutes for someone to arrive. She had to call twice and was asked if “it truly was an emergency” the first time she called.

I immediately called for two male colleagues to sit with me. It took another 10+ minutes for my boss to arrive and tell me to “call 911 and deal with it myself.”

It took more than 40 minutes for the police to arrive at which point the police officer told me “it was a bad idea to press charges because I wouldn’t want to ruin anyone’s life.”

I left work, more than an hour later, without my supervisors asking me if I was ok.

At 8:30pm I was called by Human Resources and told that I was to stay home pending an investigation, as well as threats made against myself and my colleague, by family members of the individual who assaulted me.

We were “to be out for our own safety.”

Two days later the Director of Human Resources requested a meeting.

He served me with an incident report alleging “unprofessional conduct.” I was not told specifically what conduct was unprofessional.

He was rude and angry that I had nothing more to offer than the statements I and my colleague made in writing at the time of the assault. I was told to stay home until further notice.

The individual who assaulted me was not asked to stay home. They were not disciplined in any way and continued on like nothing happened.

Let me reiterate that I was the victim of a physical assault and am now being investigated for having somehow caused my own attack.

It is inconceivable to me that in an era where women are finally finding power in collectively telling their stories and accusing their abusers, my workplace would treat an assault victim like this.

Ah, but you see, I’m a teacher.

Does that change the way you read the story?

“There must be more, some explanation!” you say.

And there is.

You see not only am I a teacher, but I am an urban, high school, ESOL teacher. It is my job to be the voice for the most underserved part of an already severely underserved population.

As such, I must be an advocate for those who cannot navigate English and the bureaucracy of the American school system. I make sure that my students get every allocation afforded to them by state and federal mandates, even if that means going above my Principal’s head to do it.

I’m also a Union Representative. I make sure that administration follows our contract, which makes for some tense encounters.

I am also a married, white woman who believes that it is my obligation to use my privilege to speak about racism, sexism, and classism in spaces not easily accessed by people of color.

I am the co-chair of the Social Justice Union Committee for the Rochester Teachers Association.

One of my students and I brought World Hijab Day to Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse. I wrote the resources that are available on the Rochester City School District’s website and that have been distributed through the Mid-West Regional Bilingual Resource Network. I have also served with the Black Lives Matter at School Planning Committee and helped bring the adopted resolution Supporting Community Actions for Safe Schools after the Parkland massacre.

I am unabashedly an advocate for my students and my profession.

Can you see what that means?

It means that for those in power, I’m a political nightmare.

Our society and therefore school districts count on the “teacher archetype”. We are underpaid, underrepresented, and easy to bully with phrases like “it’s for the kids”.

We’re told we are failing our youth because they are failing tests designed for students of color to fail.

Still we try harder, reflect more, do the work to help our children succeed.

We are so downtrodden by a broken system that many of us don’t have any fight left in us.

The systemic racism, sexism and classism that pervade our school systems count on this. It counts on the fact that teaching is an underpaid, female dominated profession to keep us in line. As long as teachers are too poor, too scared, and too tired, they remain quiet.

But I represent a change in that mindset. In the era of #MeToo, #WhyIDidn’tReport and teacher strikes, women are collectively finding our voices.

Just this week our Union filed a lawsuit against the district for teachers being involuntarily transferred (removed from their positions). Many of the teachers involved were vocal, political, and union advocates.

Do you see a pattern here?

As for me, It’s now been 6 weeks that I’ve been home on paid leave with no end in sight.

I’ve been told that the best guess for the “unprofessional conduct toward a student” is that she accused myself and the other teacher of being anti-Muslim. H.R. only says that on the phone though, not in writing. It would mean we’d actually know what I’m accused of, which would mean we could defend me.

They did however, figure out that the teacher who witnessed the incident was Muslim herself, so she’s back to work.

When the Director of Labor Relations at the Rochester Teachers Association reached out for an update on my case, Human Resources said, “They’d been busy.”

The district has now paid me more than $7,500 to stay home. They’ve had to pay a substitute $123 per day to cover my classes. (Currently a little more than $3,000). In a District that is severely in debt and had to offer a retirement incentive for the first time in almost 20 years, you would think they’d have 5 minutes to google my name and see all of the very public work that I’ve done surrounding positive Muslim relationships and learning environments. I think it’s easier to hope I’ll just hide with my proverbial tail between my legs.

I fully expect that after this blog post, they will find something else to say was “unprofessional”. I’m willing to take that chance.

So what now?

I don’t blame the child who hit me. More than likely she was frustrated with the same unfair testing system that I hate, and got overwhelmed. (Yes, the infamous NYS testing makes an appearance in this story.)

I also don’t blame her for accusing my colleague and I of being anti-Muslim.

I believe she said the first thing that came to her mind to get her out of a bad situation. Kids, and adults, do it all of the time. She was not my student and didn’t know her ESOL teacher was Muslim, as she doesn’t cover her hair.

It is a difficult and scary time to be a woman of color, an immigrant, and a Muslim in the United States. I can’t imagine the societal pressure she feels.

No, I don’t blame her, she is “just a kid” after all.

I blame the adults.

I blame the Principal for advancing this ludicrous investigation to keep the school’s image clean. The paperwork that I filled out on April 10th, was not sent or processed by Human Resources until 4 weeks after my assault.  Our building has a habit of hiding assaults on teachers because they like to “maintain their image”.

I blame administration at the building level for making all of the teachers in my building unsafe by participating in these practices.

For worrying more about politics than about people.

I blame the Director of Human Resources for treating me like a criminal instead of a victim. For asserting that I may have lied about the assault.

I blame him for not doing his job and wasting taxpayer money because he’s “too busy” for a 5 minute google search.

Most of all I blame a system that allows women to be assaulted with alarming frequency in their workplace. That teaches us that we aren’t worthy of being safe, that we must have done something wrong. The system that teaches women “it won’t happen again”, that shows our female students that their teacher’s bodily safety doesn’t matter.

The system that grooms both students and teachers for future abuse.

I refuse to be a part of that system.

I refuse to be re-victimized by my workplace. I was assaulted and I deserve to be heard.

Education will continue to suffer as long as politics and image matter more than people.

Until then, I will continue to be an advocate for my students, fellow women, and fellow teachers.

And if the District wants to pay me to sit at home while I do it, so be it.

Peace,

Kelly

 

Notes:

In 2011 The American Psychological Association conducted one of the few national studies concerning violence against teachers. 80% of the teachers surveyed claimed to have had one more more victimization experience in the previous 12 months.

As of last week I have filed a Freedom of Information Law request with the District, asking them to provide the specific number of assaults reported by teachers in the 2017-2018 school year.

I have also asked for the statistics and related procedural information as to how assaults are supposed to be quantified and assigned consequences.

They have not provided the information at this time.

For more information in an easily digestible format, consult the following articles-

https://www.apa.org/education/k12/teacher-victimization

http://neatoday.org/2013/02/19/violence-against-teachers-an-overlooked-crisis-2/

https://www.ravemobilesafety.com/blog/violence-against-teachers-a-silent-national-crisis

Also of note:

When I received word that threats were made against me, I called the Rochester Police Department to press charges in the event that I needed a restraining order. Because the student was a minor, I was told I could not change it on the phone with someone else, the arresting officer would have to.

I gave my phone number and email and repeated that there were threats against my person and I was nervous as I have a small child.

I have never been contacted by the Rochester Police Department to follow up.

 

Rape Culture Is Learned in School

This isn’t the first time that I’ve found myself worrying about the topic that I’m going to blog about. I use my blog as an outlet to address the wrongs that I see in education for which I have no official avenue to confront—and today’s topic is an uncomfortable one.

It is time to address the role schools play in the continuation of societal norms that encourage the pervasive cultural oppression and sexualization of girls and women—or what is commonly known as rape culture.  

For the past week I’ve been watching as the world weighs in on the allegations of Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

I’ve been part of conversations where people throw around phrases like “He was just a kid, should this ruin his life?” and “If it happened, it shouldn’t impact him now, he’s a different person.”

I watched the leader of our country tweet and question why the victim didn’t report the crime against her sooner.

As I got overwhelmed with the national media, I decided to do some self care and focus on my personal relationships instead of things that I can not control.

Browsing social media I came across the following post from one of my fellow educators about their daughter (edited to protect names):

Daughter: “Security guard commented on my shoulders showing when I entered the building and suggested it would be ‘distracting to boys’.”

Parents: “You tell him it is creepy that he is looking at you like that and to feel free to call your parents directly with his concerns.”

What commenced in the Facebook comments is the denigration of civilised discourse that we’ve come to accept as a society, complete with swearing, a man calling the aforementioned daughter “disrespectful to adults” and the accusation that the parents were “looking to pay off their house.”

This morning, while sitting with my morning coffee, my husband decided it was time to talk about his experience with toxic masculinity and the boys will be boys mentality that permeates sports teams.

Maybe it was the coffee, but it finally hit me—our education system is complicit in enabling the sexualization and harassment of girls.

I’m not sure how it took me so long to see it.

Teachers are some of the most progressive people out there. We champion freedom of speech, religion, and sexual orientation.

We hang stickers on our doors proclaiming that our classrooms are safe spaces.

The reality is, for our girls and our female teachers, school is not safe and teachers are (unknowingly) part of the systemic way that boys learn that they are superior to girls.

How many elementary teachers struggle with “out of control boys” in their classrooms? It’s not because they are biologically wired to be “rough and tumble” or more physical than girls; it is because society tells them that “that’s what boys do”.

The “boys will be boys” mentality gives them the permission to do so, and it looks like “acting out” in the classroom.

Think about it—when a little boy chases or teases a girl we say, “It’s because he likes you.”

We have just told that girl that it’s acceptable for a boy to chase and hurt her because of his feelings. We have implied that he has no control over the situation.

In middle and high school, we continue to perpetuate rape culture, as we enforce school dress codes that are sexist and shame girls.

By telling a girl to “cover up” or that their skin is “distracting to boys” we are telling them that their bodies are dangerous and harassment is inevitable. This also teaches our girls that they are the cause of a boy’s actions, instead of placing the blame solely where it belongs, on the offender.

Then comes the normalizing of sexual harassment and assault in schools.

Today, as an experiment, I went into the hallway with a sticky note. Over the course of three minutes, I recorded all of the times girls were slapped on the butt, or had an arm put around them that they shrugged off, or a hug they pushed away.

There were three butt slaps in which the girl yelped and reacted angrily, one shove with a “Get away from me!” as a male student tried to hug a female student, and seven instances where I saw a girl try to slip out of a boy’s draped arm looking decidedly uncomfortable.

One girl was licked.

I realize this wasn’t exactly scientific, but it also isn’t abnormal—any three minute segment of time at my school is likely to produce similar results. It paints a picture of a culture in which girls are repeatedly touched intimately and inappropriately without consent.

Ah, but they are just kids being kids right?

Two years ago one of my students was assaulted by another student outside of the gym. He grabbed her butt and pushed himself against her. It was captured on the school’s surveillance video.

She (and her mother) were adamant that the boy be punished to the maximum extent. She was told it was being taken care of and to “show us that beautiful smile”, because it was going to be alright.

Instead, she was made to sit in a “restorative meeting” with the boy and his mother to try and “work things out”. She was re-victimized for what seemed to be an opportunity for the school to avoid reporting a sexual assault.

During the hearing concerning his behavior, her side of the story was not presented. Her demands on punishment were not presented. The administrator did not ask for the maximum disciplinary action, in fact, he asked for it to be reduced.

Afterward myself and two other teachers sat with the girl while she cried. She had thought that her coming forward would mean that she wouldn’t have to see the boy again.

She expected to be believed; she expected to be kept safe.

And what about our female teachers?  

Last year I was forced to file a police report on a student who yelled, multiple times, in front of two teacher witnesses, that he was “going to violate me” because I told him he was on the wrong bus for a field trip.

Violate me.

Instead of removing the student, administration chose to “investigate” the claim. Instead of using the discipline process, I was told “He doesn’t normally act like that.”, “He meant he was going to curse you out. ” and “It’s not that bad.”

A week after the incident, after union representation and meeting after meeting, no disciplinary action had been taken. I was repeatedly re-victimized by being questioned about my role in the incident and asked to sit in a room with the offender and his mother. I was accused of being “overly sensitive”, as if being threatened with bodily harm by a man who towers over you and weighs at least 75 lbs. more than you is something to brush off.

But he’s just a kid. He didn’t mean it. Don’t ruin his life. You must have done something to make him do that.

Sound familiar?

In the days following the incident, five of my fellow colleagues told me how they feel that their discipline referrals on students aren’t taken seriously because they are women….FIVE… and those are the teachers that were comfortable enough telling me about their experiences.

If I go back a few years, the Principal who tenured me was given the choice to resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct toward untenured and student teachers.

Women who had no professional recourse. Women who he could have fired with no due process because they had no tenure. Women who weren’t even out of college.

I hear he’s now a Principal in the next town over.

Or how about that time my friend, whom I wrote about here, was told she wasn’t being recommended for tenure and to sign this paper saying she agreed to a year extension, while the Principal changed his clothes?

These stories alone can launch hundreds and thousands more.

In fact, I will go so far as to say schools are where our children are indoctrinated into rape culture.

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in four college-age women will be victims of forced sex.

Nearly two thirds of college women are victims of sexual harassment.

College-aged young men don’t wake up in the morning and decide to sexually assault someone; they do it because they have been taught by society that they aren’t doing anything wrong.

Children learn how to become members of society in school and they have been conditioned by our lack of discipline surrounding harassing behavior.

These children become the Brett Kavanaughs of the world.

Until we teach our kindergarten boys that “She did not want to be touched by you.” and to “STOP!” when a girl doesn’t want to be “teased”,

Until we stop telling girls their bodies are the problem,

Until teachers don’t have to endure sexually inappropriate taunts because “They are just kids”,

Until we address the systemic misogyny that rules our education system,

Your daughters will continue to fall prey to the predators that we create.

Are you scared? Are you angry?

Now try smiling. It’s really not that bad.

Peace,

Kelly