Less than a month

I will be very happy for this year to end.

Last year I had a lovely co-teacher. Sweet, but completely inept. She was a grandmotherly type, sick all the time, unable to discipline the kids (although they loved her) and didn't know the material since she had been an elementary art teacher.

What a person to stick in a low level math class.

So, to me she was a burden.

This year I have two. They know the math (for the most part). One is really sweet, but other than making one test, he does nothing to take the burden off me. He doesn't copy. He doesn't create the different things to fill in the blank. He can teach sometimes - but it's the copying, grading, write ups, phone calls, and just planning work that he doesn't do.

And then there is funsucker.

She wants to be the general ed teacher, so she does nothing for the kids on her roll. She also does none of the teacher-grunt work but creates an environment such that I am constantly running around in that class putting out fires.

One of the APs has suggested we have a meeting to talk about how she undermines discipline in the room. She doesn't realize I got my hand smacked big time for trying that (why, I have no idea, since no one who has ever taught with funsucker wants her a second time).

So I have gotten passive aggressive. Some of it is really easy. Funsucker has arranged our planning meeting so they take place 10 minutes before we start teaching for the week. So I have to have already done the planning, the copying, etc. I am working on the final now - I will not run it past her until the last minute, if then.

I change the order of things after the meeting and forget to tell her. Wow, that sounds vicious, doesn't it? Actually, what happens is I start thinking about if I do this, then this happens and I run out of stuff to do here, but if I do that, then I have more to fill up the hour. So, at the last minute I pull out that and haven't discussed it with her.

While she is teaching (and she tells me when I get to teach. Isn't that special?) she will interrupt herself to discipline this child or that. I usually intervene to talk with the kid, but while I am doing that, all hell is breaking loose.

I can discipline a class. I can manage to teach. I do not have extraneous conversations with students while she is teaching (I cannot say the same thing about her. She is not helping them, she is asking about the tv show they watched the night before, or their boyfriend, or whatever WHILE I AM TEACHING. I stop and turn around and watch her until she wraps it up and then I finish the lecture.)

And, yes, I have talked with the administration. They told me I need to get along with her and what is MY problem.

Less than a month. And I am working on ditching the passive agressive tendencies - but yelling at her will not change her and will further undermine the class.

What I NEED is administrative support. And that isn't going to happen either.