I’ve been an educator in Boston public schools for more than 30 years. I am a high school biology teacher who holds a graduate degree from Harvard. I spent three years as a new teacher developer, one of 12 chosen from across the school district to mentor first-year educators.
What has kept me motivated over the more than three decades I’ve spent in Boston classrooms is the importance of helping high school students understand the world around them. My whole career has been about making schools better for underserved kids.
I am also one of those so-called “unwanted” teachers that have been vilified over the past months, first by anti-public education groups and then by select media outlets. It has been falsely alleged that we “do not teach” – implying we don’t go to work each day serving BPS students. That is blatantly false. All pool teachers go to work each day on temporary assignment. In fact, school principals must bid and compete to retain teachers on temporary assignment because we are heavily in demand. We go to work like every other teacher, guidance counselor, or school nurse. The only difference is we are not on long-term assignment to a specific school.