You know, if I ever get on a school board, or am running a district for some reason or another, I would never hire anyone as an administrator who was more than a few years out of the classroom. The brilliant bean-counters down at the district office decided to sacrifice children's education for a few bucks saved (which I'd imagine went for executive lunches or new mahogany panelling for the superintendent's office or some other worthy purpose). My class was canceled, my FA removed to another school, and due to some stupid goddamn arbitrary rules, the teacher next door couldn't take over my class, and supervise us as well as the TFA folks in her room (would have put her 2 students over the 24 max. class size) even though she was willing to do it and did it all day today effectively. Despite my advisor CR going to bat with us in front of the principal, no luck. Now, this stuff is a pain in the ass for me- I have to learn new kids names, figure out how to teach 3rd grade instead of 5th, get about half the teaching time in, etc. etc. But it's doable for me. I'm in this job because I'm flexible- I'm an adult, I've done change before, it's annoying, but I can deal. My kids however, get completely screwed. It took us and the FA 2 weeks of teaching to figure out where each of them really needed help, how they worked with each other, and how we could best teach them. We had units in progress, books in early chapters, hell- we only got halfway through the play we were reading today. By the time another teacher gets them, figures out how they'll fit into her lesson plans, get them assessed (even if we share what we know, you can only tell so much) they'll have about a week of summer school left, and what good will that do them? These are all kids who didn't have to be here, who signed up (or whose parents signed them up) to get extra help and make sure they entered 6th grade on a track to graduate... What gives somebody in the district office the right to waste their time? Just because they're numbers on a sheet? Statistics? Sure, close a 5th grade class, it's only a dozen kids. Well, shit. Somebody should be making these decisions who's actually come down and seen these kids. Seen what they've been doing, and how hard they've been trying this past week... seen how they light up when they tell me that they're finally figuring out fractions for the first time because we had the time to sit down with them in 2 on 1 groups to work through it. On top of that, how many times have some of these kids have adults walk out on them? Adults who told them they'd be there, and said they cared about them, and would help them? Maybe that's why one incredibly talented but unfocused boy spent the ten minutes after we gave our sad announcement pounding on his desk in frustration and burst into tears as my colleague walked him out the door? Anyone in the district office see that? And if they did, do you think it would make a difference?