Good old-fashioned VENTING. AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS.

2005-03-30 at 7:09 p.m.

Ha. HA. HA HA and TRIPLE HA.

How well did That University do what they said?

Let's examine.

First, my placement. My first student teaching placement was with a teacher who not only CLEARLY didn't want a student teacher, but was also beyond jaded and was sleepwalking through his teaching career.

Then they changed my placement via this phone call:

"Kari, where have you BEEN?"

"Um, at [my high school], with my cooperating teacher?"

"Well, [Other High School] has been expecting you all week!"

Uh, what? They could expect me all they wanted but if NO ONE TOLD ME THAT MY PLACEMENT HAD BEEN CHANGED, really, don't you think I'm the wrong person to blame?

Three months pass. I've been offered the amazing opportunity to get hired before I'm done student teaching--to get paid for completing my student teaching! All I have to do is get my Temporary Restricted License, a sort of apprentice-level teaching license.

That University? No idea, never heard of it, can't help you.

I end up driving my own sorry ass down to Salem to meet with the Teaching and Standards Protocols Commission on my own with my own copies of all the necessary documentation that I collected ON MY OWN.

You'd think, wouldn't you, it'd be a bit of a coup for a teaching program to have its candidates hired BEFORE THEY WERE EVEN DONE and so they'd be falling all over themselves to help.

But apparently, you'd be mistaken.

So then. Then! the program is ending. And I'm presented with the "fact" that they don't have the evaluation of my first work sample (that I put in my administrator's mailbox on December 8th, the day before it was due) and they don't have proof that I passed the Anti-Discrimination test (are you starting to see what I'm saying about bureaucracy yet?).

Note that I couldn't have gotten my Temporary Restricted License if SALEM thought I hadn't passed the AD exam. So I politely requested that they recheck my file because clearly the STATE thought I had passed that requirement, so maybe the UNIVERSITY could recheck and maybe in the same place they found my AD exam, they'd find those papers that they mysteriously didn't have?

So, now, two weeks later, the first day I'm not teaching twenty miles away, I stop in to check on it. Fortunately, I had made copies of my work sample evaluation, so I brought them in just in case as well.

No, of course they hadn't found anything. "Oh, well, here you go!" I say brightly and chipperly. Now all I need is proof that I passed the AD exam.

So I head down to the AD exam room and ask there. He sends me to ask someone else, who sends me to still SOMEONE ELSE who is sitting AROUND THE CORNER from the FIRST desk jockey I'd talked to who had mysteriously lost my work sample evaluation. So this new guy rolls over to his bank of file cabinets, looks up my file and hands me my AD exam certificate.

So I walk the FIFTEEN STEPS to Ivan, the file-losing-boy, and show him proof that I passed the AD exam.

THEY WERE DENYING ME MY CERTIFICATION BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T WALK FIFTEEN STEPS TO CHECK MY FREAKING FUCKING GODDAMN FILE. No, no, I had to drive in, pay to park, spend an HOUR AND A HALF chasing people down to WALKING THOSE MOTHERFUCKING FIFTEEN STEPS MYSELF.

But wait! There's more! Thinking everything's all fixed, I go to PrissyBitch, who's in charge of approving my file to be sent to Salem. She has to check and make sure everything's in my file. The one thing they're missing, now, she says, is a transcript. From That University.

What?

You need to get a transcript.

I have to get a transcript? Don't you WORK for the SAME UNIVERISTY that your making me PAY to get a transcript from so that I can WALK IT ACROSS THE STREET and hand it right back to you, an employee of that SAME UNIVERSITY????

Ah, no, this is the Graduate School of Education.

Yes, but it's the SAME UNIVERSITY!!!! And all the classes I took were IN the GODDAMN GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION! Why do I have to PAY to PROVE to YOU that I TOOK YOUR CLASSES???? Don't you ALREADY KNOW??? BECAUSE THEY WERE YOUR CLASSES?

Ahem. Pardon the shouting. I'm just MOTHERFUCKING PISSED OFF.

Because wait! There's even MORE!

So fine. I have to pay to prove to them that I took and passed their own goddamn classes. Fine. What the fuck ever.

I pull up an unofficial transcript just to see what I'm getting.

A, A, A, A, (hey look, I'm pretty goddamn smart!) A, Pass, Pass, A, A, M...

M?

What? What does M mean?

Missing? It means a grade was never turned in? WHAT?

WHAT?

By this time I'm either going to throw shit or cry or just go freaking postal. I spent an hour waiting to meet with PrissyBitch, I tried to find my administrator, who despite having advertised office hours for this time was nowhere to be found, I had to WALK A GODDAMN PIECE OF PAPER FIFTEEN FEET BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE COULD DO IT FOR TWO YEARS, and now THIS????

How do I contest this?

I have to find the prof who gave me the M. But she's an adjunct professor, see, and what's more, she's in the Special Education department which means she's in another building.

Fine. Okay. Breath. Zen. Get through this.

Downstairs, across the street, into the Special Education department. She only teaches on Mondays. Can I have her email? How about a phone? Oh, her home phone?

Even better.

I call. "They won't let me get certified because I have an 'M' for your class."

"Whaaaat? I gave you an A!"

"Yes, well..."

"I'll call them and get it changed right away."

Jesus. JESUS. I just... I can't... what the hell? How many more ways can That University make me sweat blood for something I'm PAYING them FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS to do?

Their only jobs are to get me a good placement and to just HANDLE this SHIT. Which is a good thing because the classes? Weren't all that good either.

God. I just can't wait until I'm certified and then NEVER donate to the alumni fund. EVER.

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