Free Dr. Frank Einstein by Eric Berg Page B

end of June I was summoned to the cluster superintendent's office.  It was an out of the way mobile office on a high school campus.  I sat opposite him at his desk.
         “You’re right, Mr.  Berg,” he admitted, “you can’t be terminated. However you won’t be going to back to that class.  Mr. Macintosh will continue there for continuity.  You’re to be assigned to a general education first grade.”
           I said nothing, shook his hand and left.    Knowing the ropes,   I knew never saying anything but let the union speak for me. I went to my union area representative.  He was one that represents me at evaluation meeting where principal had lied thus throwing out the evaluation.  He was an attorney –the qualification for the job.  When I just started with the union five years previou s   Anthony  villaraigosa had been also an area representative.  He became mayor of Los Angeles after Riordan. Riordan sent the police to beat me up at the Democratic Convention.
          He shared an office at United Teacher of Los Angeles headquarters.  I plopped on his visitor chair.  He needed to know all the harassment to members.  He knew that I could not get terminated.
          “I’m one of the few special education fully credentialed. Hardly any of the teachers in these special education classes in the district is fully credentialed in special education.  Yet they prevent me from teaching special education.  I’m a special education teacher. I have taught special education for four years but never had a general education class.  To put an unqualified teacher over a credentialed teacher in my special education class is illegal.  “
         “Yes, it is.”  He responded in agreement.
         “I’ m going to file state charges.”
          “We could look into that.”
     
          On July first I became a first grade teacher.  There is nothing wrong about being a first grade teacher. A teacher is a teacher is a teacher.  So it does not matter what   “We could look into that.”
         I had all requirements to teach this class because I had multiple subjects credential (this is the credential for elementary school in the state of California).
         Elizabeth consisted of a ninety three per cent Hispanic representation in its population.  It had a year round calendar.  My track had three other young female teachers who spoke fluent Spanish.  Therefore they taught English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and I taught the English only class.  
       General elementary was different than special education in the district in terms of qualifications.  In the sixties, California school districts hired massive amount of teachers. But in the seventies and eighties, districts rarely hired teachers.  Around nineteen nineties a mini baby boom occurred, the first since the one that ended in nineteen sixty two.   Also proposition two twenty two passed by the Californian voters.  This proposition required that grades k to three must have a maximum of twenty students.  These caused another massive hiring of teachers.  As a result the school had an experience gap.  Many teachers were in their late fifties, fully credentialed, with thirty years of experience. On the other hand, many teachers were young, maybe credentialed or close to it, and had a little experience.  Very few were in the middle.
          I had twenty students age six year olds at the turned of millennium.  This was year we made seventy two thousand United States Dollars and lived in mini mansion in Carson.
          I liked all my students. I had an African American boy; a red headed boy with an Irish name but was still considered Hispanic.  Then the rest were Hispanics. Born in America they were native English speakers though some spoke Spanish as well.  Most of their parents were born in the states. Their mastery of English and the fact that they had been going to school, in