'so i'd like to know where you got the notion'

just when things were settling down at school – the kids were getting used to me, i was really beginning to know and understand and enjoy them- one of my students came to me this morning near tears. she thrust her program (schedule) and told me she wasn't in my class anymore. sure enough, the new program had her listed in a double period class with the other english teacher. she continued to wail that 'everyone else' (ie, the rest of the students in her mainstreamed inclusion class) has been switched, too. no one had talked to me about any changes, so I had no idea what was going on and set out to find out. i finally tracked down an administrator –the man who recruited me, actually – and his eyes widened in surprise when I told him what was going on. not because of the actual program changes but because no one –my assistant principal in particular- never came to me to tell me –or any of the other affected teachers- what was going on.

apparently, the decision was made (by whom? no one will take accountability for it) that since many of my special ed kids had not passed the english regents yet, they would be better off in a class with a teacher with more regents experience. i see this logic, but am so frustrated with this system, where all of a sudden i lose a double period of 20 kids i have come to see as 'mine', to be replaced by 2 single periods of kids who are strangers to me. and if it's that jarring for me, what about the kids themselves? the whole situation is —— up, and i am irate that no one bothered to inform any teachers of this and we wound up learning about the changes through the students.

i've already grown to love my ragtag group of kids and resent that they're being pulled from my room. i am a good teacher and know that I could prepare them for the regents. it broke my heart to have a bunch of them swarm around me during the class change, upset about the change and heartbroken that they wouldn't be able to do their skits in class today (we are doing a TV-talk-show-type-reunion-special that takes place 5 years after the end of the book we just read). they looked to me for solace and answers, but i had none. that's an awful way to feel.

at my old school if something like this had even threatened to happen, i'd be in the office lodging a formal complaint and rallying my colleagues to help fight a bad decision, but here i barely know which is end is up sometimes. my dad keeps telling me as newbie it's not a good idea to rock the boat, but what if i really, really think it needs rocking?