By the same token exit interviews should be conducted of teachers leaving including those taking retirement. The interviews should be done by outsiders or at least upper management.

Public schools should be run so that the employees have a sense of accomplishment – even if not a profound one. If that’s not happening they need to change. If it is happening I wish OUSD would make sure people know that it is so.

When I was a sub (not at OUSD) – more than a generation ago – the subs talked to each other and we knew which schools and which districts to refuse assignments to. We also told each other which schools and districts were the most fullfilling to work with and why. The difference between the two wasn’t the money, it was everything else. A lot of “everything else” was the way things were run. We didn’t mind working with less sophisticated (lower SES) students at all – they needed us more. We didn’t mind alternative/continuation schools on occasion either. What made the difference was the way the district and the principal on site ran each campus.

I’m sure there are thousands of other teachers out there (teaching locally, of course) who would see the backyard tomato plant as a beautiful metaphor for their lives…