I had my check in with my supervisor yesterday and we had a long talk about some of the issues. I didn't keep telling everything here but basically last week got a lot worse. One specific thing was during a camp day (when we have kids for about 12 hours). I had a staff call out sick the night before and I reached out to him and a colleague, tried a few people, and when I didn't get anyone just planned on going in myself for her shift. It was pushing the staffing but workable. I already was stretched thin because of a student who needs extra support in diapering, however he does really well in the large group. So then a staff person was not there on time. I called one other staff to come in early and then I tried her phone and it went to voicemail, I texted, and then I tried her husband before I called my supervisor. When I called my supervisor she was 45 minutes late and I asked if he or the other supervisors had any people I could call or if they had time to make any calls for me. He was nice about it but didn't have anyone, and then started into a long winded thing about how it is PS's responsibility to plan for these things, that we are supposed to be prepared and it is our job to be prepared, and that he would be holding me accountable. I was not okay with that. I could feel myself getting really angry so I just cut the conversation short, I was supervising 24 kids with one other staff person so I told him we needed to talk later but I had to go continue to supervise. Right after that the missing staff was able to come in and we were okay. I called him back to update, he still visited us but everything was working out then.
Yesterday we spent a long time discussing our communication styles. I think we made progress but I still think he is sticking to his statement on that, basically I should have not taken the special needs kid for that day if the plan was for me to be his helper instead of having another staff hired specifically for him. My point of view is that I had a plan that was only a problem when one person was sick and another over an hour late. I think we agree to disagree. I shared that with his style of repeating a lot I feel that I am in trouble, sometimes a lot of trouble, because he brings the same thing up over and over. I think he has the 'lawyer syndrome'. That is my own new term. He just needs to give the disclaimer for the situation every time. So when we talk about these camp days and how I want to share the work he always includes 'It is the expectation that you work all these days, and that all PS's work 8 hours on these days,...' Could be from a lack of confidence in his job or a personality trait or who knows. At least when I shared that I felt I was in a lot of trouble he said I wasn't and he would tell me if I was. That helps my bottom line fear that my job is somehow on the line.
Anyway need to get to work!
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Originally Posted by Teacher Terry
