What’s an Opportunity Transfer?
Not long ago, an acquaintance who works for the Los Angeles School District apparently upset his superiors and the administration with a grievance and critique. As he told me the story of his ordeal, I was blown away with what had happened to him. Yes, things happen, of course, he’d been a thorn in their side, but they realized they couldn’t lay him off or fire him due to tenure and his high performance ranking, so they gave him the old; Opportunity Transfer!
Rather than telling him it was his punishment for giving them such a hard time, they actually had the tenacity to explain to him that it was an “Opportunity Transfer” which added insult to injury of course. It turns out they sent him to one of the poorest schools in the entire Los Angeles School District, in a neighborhood known for gangs, drugs, and super high dropout rates. That doesn’t sound like much of an opportunity to me, nor did it to him.
However, the higher-ups of the school district explained this would give him a chance to shine, to do his best work, and they knew they could count on him. Of all the malarkey I’ve heard of in this world, this is how they treat people that question their authority. Indeed, the Los Angeles school district has a tremendous number of students under their control, but they are not exactly batting 1000, even recently there was a molestation case where they put the entire faculty in one of the schools on temporary leave, while they arrested two or three teachers for suspicion of molestation.
That’s not exactly building confidence with the public, nor the parents of students who are in the Los Angeles School District. Although the school district doesn’t have the highest dropout rate in the country, I assure you it is amongst one of the top districts for dropout rates, and they are still having challenges with union tenure, no child left behind act, and students graduating who cannot exactly write a decent paragraph – oh but they can text message up a storm.
And yet, when the LAUSD’s judgment is question from within what do they do; they provide opportunity transfers for anyone who questions their moral authority. Indeed, I would submit to you that the problem is much bigger than this one problem with a single school teacher who wants to see the district improved. The moral of the story here of course is; be very wary of the old “Opportunity Transfer” trick. I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
