David A. Wendelowski

December 3, 1997

Macbailey Middle School

West Wildwood, CT

West Wildwood is a suburb of the larger city,

Wildwood. It has a racially and ethnically mixed

population of approximately 60,000 people. The

economic status of West Wildwood ranges from

welfare recipients to upper-middle-class.

Schools opened as they normally do in West

Wildwood this year. The normal bus problems

occurred; students not knowing where to go, and

their drivers not knowing where to drop them off;

students meeting new teachers for the first time;

teachers meeting new students, and trying to decide

what kind of a year it will be for them.

Yet some of the faculty at Macbailey Middle School

were experiencing a dilemma of their own, different

from those they have experienced in the past. This

year, for the first time in over twenty years, the

sixth grades were being placed in the

middle-school. This was done to alleviate the

over-crowding of the eleven elementary schools in

West Wildwood. Many of these sixth grade

teachers were new to the middle school

environment. Some of them were also placed there

against their wishes. They were forced to move

with their classes, unless they were able to find

another teacher within the system to swap with in

another school .

It wasn't even the fourth week of school yet, when

Julie Nicholas, a teacher new to Macbailey, went to

her team leader Alan Wenston, in a panic.

"I can't stand it any longer. They won't listen to

me! I don't have any control over them. They do

whatever they want. They're driving me crazy!

You've got to do something. Split up this group!

Do something! By the time I get them settled down,

it's almost time to switch classes!" she exclaimed.

Alan has been teaching in West Wildwood for over

twenty years, and chose to make the move to

Macbailey Middle School. His experience is mostly

in teaching fifth and sixth grades in the elementary

school setting. His only experience with the middle

school is that his two teenage sons are recent

graduates of the middle school, so he has a

personal understanding of students in this age

group.

This is also Julie's first year in the middle school,

and she is having a difficult time adjusting to her

new teaching environment. She has been a sixth

grade teacher for the past ten years in a

neighborhood school. She was used to having the

children well-behaved and under control, due to

two strict disciplinarians in the fifth grade before

her. Now she is being confronted with five

different groups of students who come from

varying academic and social backgrounds. No

longer does she have the luxury of a class made up

of mostly middle class well-behaved boys and girls

that she had grown used to. The classes in her new

school's sixth grade were grouped incorrectly at

first, and later regrouped according to their math

abilities by the math teacher. This was done in

order to meet the criteria of West Wildwood's math

program. Students were supposed to be grouped

homogeneously for math, yet heterogeneously for

the other content areas.

Since this wasn't done before the school year

began, Alan, the math teacher and team leader was

left to give the students a placement test and decide

what group/book each child was to be placed in.

There are three different books/levels used in

Macbailey, a fifth grade book, for the weaker

students, the normal sixth grade book, and a

seventh grade book for the more advanced group.

Unfortunately, since this grouping was done after

school began, these new groups have to stay

together and switch as a class throughout the whole

day.

Julie's problem is the class of students who are in

the fifth grade level book, or as she calls them,

"The Group from Hell". This group is made up of a

mixture of boys and girls of mostly low academic

ability, and in many cases social skills (to put it

politely). They are a tough group to handle, even

for a firm disciplinarian such as Alan. The other

three teachers on Alan's team have their difficulties

with this group also, but not near the degree of

Julie's'.

One day, Julie walked into Alan's room an said, "I

want you to regroup this class again, and make two

better behaved combination classes out of them."

Alan replied, "I don't want to do this because I will

have to teach to two very different math levels in

one class. I can't do this properly in a 46 minute

period from bell to bell. There would even be less

time than that if you consider getting settled, and

taking attendance. It wouldn't be fair to the kids!"

His argument against this combination grouping is

how much of the period would be spent on

discipline? These behavior problems could spread

to the better behaved group, and cause additional

behavior problems? This could essentially cause the

team to have two or three problem classes rather

than just one.

Alan has been trying very hard to avoid the topic of

rearranging his team into combination classes. The

other team members are sympathetic to both Alan

and Julie, but are not committing themselves either

way.

Although, Rachel Suzzane, the team science teacher

did say, "We know what we have now, and don't

know what we might get if we change things." But

still, no one is siding with either one.

Alan went to the instructional leader for some

support, because Mr. Anthony was annoyed that

some groups and schedules were changed in the

first place.

He said, "You better have things straightened out

before next year, because this will never happen

again."

Now that Alan approached him with this new

problem caused by the rescheduling, Mr. Anthony

said, "Handle it! Convince Julie that it won't work,

if that's what you want."

That was the end of the conversation. Alan left Mr.

Anthony's office wishing that he had never selected

teaching math. This would never have been his

problem if he taught his second choice, social

studies.

A week or two passed, and Alan had heard no

mention of rescheduling, or anything regarding this

group. All of a sudden out of nowhere, just outside

the main office door, in front of parents and

students, Ms. Franncis, the assistant instructional

leader began to point at Alan, and scream in his

face. "You're not doing your job! You should be

helping your team solve their problems," she

screamed. "You should be an example for them to

follow."

Needless to say, Alan was shocked, but did his

best to maintain his composure.

"Let's go to your office or down to my room for

this discussion, and do it in private. There are

students and parents out here, and this isn't being

very proper," suggested Alan to Ms. Franncis.

She replied, "I'll deal with this when and where I

want. Let the parents and students know that there

is a problem, and I am going to solve it right now!"

Alan then said, "Ms. Franncis, this isn't very

professional, we should be discussing this matter

elsewhere."

She responded, "I don't care about being

professional. I want to settle this right now!"

Alan decided that he wasn't going to continue this

discussion in the hallway in front of everyone. As

they spoke, he began walking toward his room.

Ms. Franncis continued to chastise him, but walked

along with Alan.

Just before they reached Alan's room, Ms.

Franncis said,

"You know Mr. Wenston, we are here to educate

and help all students, not just some of them."

This was more than Alan could take, and caused

him to lose his composure. He backed her into his

room, raised his voice and yelled back at her.

"I am here for all students, and don't you ever say

or even think anything like that again! If there's

anyone here that is for only some of the students,

it's you!"

At this time, the rest of Alan's team began to arrive

for a scheduled team meeting. Alan regained his

poise and invited Ms. Franncis to join them to

discuss the problem of this class. Her only

suggestion was one that they had already come up

with, and that was to separate the two most

aggressive students. This hadn't been done

previously because Mr. Anthony had already told

Alan that there would be no more class changes

made. Now that they were told to do this by an

administrator, they went back to work trying to find

two groups that wouldn't be too affected by these

trouble makers. Alan was very skeptical about this

working, but planned to give it his best effort, even

if it did mean having to teach math to these girls on

a one-to-one basis in their new groups.

Two days later, Ms. Franncis called Alan's room to

discuss another matter with him, and acted as

though nothing had happened. She was actually

very polite to Alan, too polite for his liking. He

doesn't trust her anymore.

In the meantime, Alan had been talking to some of

the veteran teachers at Macbailey, including his

union representative. He was told that this was not

the first time she had gone off on a teacher, because

he or she wasn't doing enough for "all of the

students". There were many instances last year, and

already three or four this year. They all agreed, that

this has got to stop.

Alan not being one to be pushed around unfairly,

especially in an unprofessional and humiliating

manner as this, decided to do what he feels is

necessary. Today, he began to write a letter to the

superintendent of schools notifying him that he is

putting in a grievance against Ms. Franncis for

unprofessional behavior of an administrator and

harassment.

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Case Questions

1.What would you do if you were in Alan's

situation?

1.If you were Alan, what would you have

done when Ms. Franncis attacked you in

the hall?

1.How would you respond to Ms. Franncis'

accusations?

1.Do you feel that Ms. Franncis acted

appropriately for a problem of this nature?

1.If yes, why? If not, how should she have

handled it?

1.Should the instructional leader, Mr.

Anthony, have stepped in during this

confrontation? It happened outside his

office.

1.If you were Ms. Franncis, how would you

respond to Alan's grievance?

1.Do you feel that Alan acted appropriately in

this situation?

1.If yes, why? If not, how should he have

reacted?

1.What other information do you need in

order to draw a conclusion in this case?