Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/3058
RPCEA came up with its own proto- col for how a school closure should be handled, and bargained the new lan- guage into the contract. In the past, teachers were assigned to rooms crammed wi th items others had left behind, and were responsible for disposing of them. Rooms at their new sites are now clean. Teachers from closed schools are no longer as - signed combina- tion classes the first year, to ease their adjustment. Dunaway says one of the hardest things was adjust- ing to a different student population. She was accustomed to teaching English learners, and the first time she was reas- signed she did not have any of those stu- dents in her class. She missed working with that population. Grieving is a normal part of school closure, says Dunaway. “But try and keep it short and be professional. It sounds cold and callous, but you have to be flex- ible, make new friends and see it as a professional adven- ture. You have to go with the flow.” Grieving for pink-slipped colleagues has been tough for Lisa Hatfield, a member of the Las Virgenes Educators Association who teaches at Wright Middle School in Calabasas. Many new teach- ers were laid off, including one that Hatfield mentored. “I walked into the office right after the pink slips came out and started crying. The office manager said, ‘Cry, go ahead, get it out.’ How else do you get past it?” But now it’s time to pick up the pieces, and crying is not an option. Co-workers have been very supportive of one another through this difficult time. “We’re a tight group,” relates Lisa Hatfield Las Virgenes Educators Association Hatfield. “We celebrate holi- days, weddings and births, and we grieve our losses together. On Friday we gather to un- wind, and hugs in the hallway ABOVE: Leilani Kemp at Laurel Creek Elementary School in Fairfield. INSET: Nevaeh DeSouza works with geometric blocks. are not uncommon. That will never go away, and that is why we will survive.” “At this point, there’s nothing I can do about it,” she says. “I may not have a choice about what happens, but I do have a choice on how I react. I can sit back and be miserably unhappy, or I can stand up and do whatever job I need to do. My job is to go in there every day and make sure my kids are achieving. And that’s what I will do.” september 2009 | www.cta.org 11