My Comments about My Teacher Evaluation (during April 2015) -- by Anne Shier

To our OSSTF District 12 Executive Officer, Mike Platt (NOTE: The VP’s name at my school has been changed here to protect her anonymity).

December 2015

Mike,

For the last 8 months or so, since April 2015, I've been thinking about Ms. Saperstein’s summative report about me that was later thrown out due to your actions.  And, while I'm grateful that this event happened, at the same time, it bugs me that it had to happen at all.  Was I so bad a teacher that Ms. S. wanted to get rid of me?  Because I'm positive that was on her mind during my evaluation.

I truly did my best for my students in the whole 12 years I was at Albert Campbell and the 3 years before that that I spent at Don Mills, yet I left the board feeling that I was under a cloud and not appreciated for what I had accomplished.  For example, I taught approximately 16 different courses, not including course code changes, over the 15 years I taught full-time, yet I was passed over for promotion for the position of ACL twice at Campbell, simply because I did not have a B.Sc. in computer science from some university somewhere.  And, the worst thing was that the teacher that the administration team later hired for the ACL position after interviewing me was 5 years my junior in terms of teaching computer science.

Then, this same female teacher was declared surplus a couple of years later during her maternity leave and finally had to leave the school and her ACL position.  But, by that time, I was determined never to apply for an ACL position ever again, and there was actually a significant amount of time in which we did not even have an ACL in the computer science department.  Instead, during that time, I volunteered to do the work of the ACL for our CS department without any remuneration or a job title - I just wanted to do the responsibilities of the job purely for the leadership experience.

So, for once in my teaching career, I would like to feel appreciated for what I've done for Albert Campbell and Don Mills and, most of all, I want to feel that I didn't retire simply because I felt I was being forced out.  Instead, I want to feel that I left of my own free choice - namely, for health reasons as stated in my resignation letter - and that, if I hadn't retired on June 30, 2015, my health would have deteriorated even further than it had already up till that time. For example, I believe I took something like 25 sick days in 2014-2015, mostly during the winter and again in the spring of 2015 in which I took 18 of those sick days.  I needed every one of those sick days and I had doctor's notes for all the sick leaves that were over 2 days long, as required by my employer.  The sick days I took in April just happened to coincide with my Teacher Performance Appraisal, which was supposed to take place during April.  But, I suddenly got violently ill with the flu, despite having had a flu shot earlier in the year.  It lasted 5 full days and nights, and it took me another 3 full days and nights to build up enough strength to come back to school.  By this time, the report card marks were due and my students still had no clue about how I was going to be able to help them finish their work on time.

If this note sounds like I'm venting to you Mike, well I am, but I needed to write this note to you so that you would know what the real story is.  If anybody would understand it, you would. I'm fairly positive that most teachers who retire wouldn't tell anyone their true reason for leaving when they did, so I am telling you now.  Thanks for taking the time to read this and to understand my point of view.  I appreciate your support at a time like this.

Anne Shier

(Retired teacher, June 2015,

TDSB, Albert Campbell C.I.)

P.S. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Mike!

copyright 2016 - Anne Shier - to be published in book format in the future (hard cover, soft cover, e-book / audio book)