Betrayal

As we were working on the Epic Mythology Project on Tuesday, one of my students opened her email to send a link to a friend.  There, she found an email from Guidance, informing her that Latin had been cancelled and asking her to sign up for a different language next year.

"Magistra!" she announced to the entire library, "Is it true that Latin has been cancelled?!"

Panicked, her fellow Latin 3s and 4s, as well as some of my Latin 2s, who were in the library with another class, rushed to take a look at her screen and to check their own email.  All of my non-seniors were greeted by similar emails.  Freaked out, they looked to me.

Now, I found out right before Spring Break, literally on the last day before, that Central Office had decided to kill the Latin program.  I was relieved, at least, to know that my Department Head, my Principal, my Assistant Principal, and I were all on the same page that this showed lack of foresight, and was a terrible idea.  All three of the leadership had fought with Central Office on Latin's and my behalf, but to no avail.  Because, Central Office said, our district can't support 4 languages.  BUT they still want to compete with all of those awesome and epic districts, like Newton, Wellesley, and Wayland, who DO support 4 languages at LEAST.  As my Assistant Principal said, "This shows incredible lack of foresight and willingness to invest in the students."

Anyway, my Principal and I had agreed before Spring Break that he would come up and talk with my classes so that I wouldn't have to.  After all, it fell on his shoulders.  He gave Guidance a Direct Order to not discuss this with the students until he said it was OK.  And they completely disobeyed it.

When I informed him of this, he was furious, and promised me he would reprimand Guidance.  But he was stuck in a meeting all of today, and thus, I faced my angry, confused students alone.

"I feel so betrayed!" one of my students told me.  "We were already asked to select courses!"

Believe me, I feel betrayed too.  After all, I worked so hard and the students worked so hard to make up for lost time in learning.

And why did this happen?  Because no one was held accountable.  No one has ever held Guidance accountable, nor has Central Office ever been held accountable.

And what happens now?  It affects students' ability to get into college, and takes away from everyone's credibility, honestly.  They promised the students, parents, and me that Latin would be offered next year.  And they lied.

So, even with this betrayal, I am trying to keep up the communities I've built, and the students are trying as well.

And we don't even have answers for WHY, which is the main question that students are asking at this point.

So now what? How, in the face of betrayal, do we keep the joy alive in the community?