Kris Moss hasn’t forgotten in regards to the desk her son was given in first grade and used till third grade at Springhill Lake Elementary College in Greenbelt.
Maryland
Perspective | Teachers at a Maryland school fight to keep a longtime educator
The desk confirmed Moss that the college understood her son’s wants, and the administrator who supplied that desk was Chris Wichtendahl.
“Ms. Wichtendahl was simply at all times there if you happen to had questions or wanted one thing. She was at all times the spine to the entire course of,” Moss advised me lately. “I can’t think about the college with out her.”
The college yr for a lot of college students in Prince George’s County, Maryland ended simply final week. However already, members of the Springhill Lake Elementary neighborhood are desirous about the subsequent college yr and the way it would possibly begin with out Wichtendahl within the constructing for the primary time in a long time.
Employees members have written letters to a prime official of the county’s public college system, pleading for Wichtendahl to be allowed to remain on the constructing the place she has labored for about 30 years. A trainer aware of the scenario stated that Wichtendahl’s place as a Particular Schooling Coordinator was eradicated as a part of countywide adjustments to particular schooling and that Wichtendahl didn’t discover out in time to use for an assistant principal place. The appliance window for assistant principals within the county is listed on-line as opening Feb. 1 and shutting March 4.
“Shedding Ms. Wichtendahl (‘Chris’) could be catastrophic to the employees and college students of Springhill Lake Elementary,” reads a letter from employees members addressed to Monica E. Goldson, the chief govt of the college system. “In some ways, Chris is the center and soul of our faculty. She has been a continuing that employees and households rely on, which is particularly vital contemplating the transience of our inhabitants coupled with 2 years of pandemic upheaval. She is our stability in an unsure time in schooling.”
The letter describes Wichtendahl as already performing the duties of an assistant principal, in addition to facilitating the “home-school connection,” working with neighborhood companies and organizations to supply clothes and meals donations all year long and supporting employees and college students who’re a part of the particular schooling and Instructing English to Audio system of Different Languages applications.
“Day-after-day, as devoted PGCPS educators, we attempt to satisfy the wants of our college students amid employees shortages and rising calls for,” the letter reads. “We are actually calling on you to assist us meet the wants of our faculty by permitting us to maintain Chris Wichtendahl, our confirmed efficient, educated and devoted administrator at Springhill Lake Elementary.”
The elementary college is one in every of many throughout the nation that serve a excessive variety of low-income college students, and throughout the pandemic, these faculties have confronted extraordinary challenges on prime of the traditional ones. It has fallen to employees members to maintain lessons going regardless of a nationwide trainer scarcity, regardless of college students’ experiencing loss in a number of types, regardless of employees members and college students usually testing constructive for the coronavirus.
There isn’t any query a lot has been requested of educators in the previous few years, so once they ask for one thing, we should always hear. And what they’re asking for at Springhill Lake is that an exception be made within the hiring course of to allow them to maintain onto a longtime educator who makes their footing really feel extra steady throughout an unstable time.
Requested about Wichtendahl’s scenario, Prince George’s County Public Colleges spokesperson Meghan Gebreselassie stated officers couldn’t touch upon a personnel matter.
Wichtendahl, by way of a colleague, additionally declined to remark for this column. That’s comprehensible, since doing so would have required her to discuss a faculty system she relies on for employment.
However her colleagues aren’t staying quiet. A number of spoke about her scenario to the Greenbelt Information Evaluate for an article that ran earlier this month. After which there are the letters. Greater than two dozen employees members have signed their names to letters on her behalf. A number of of these letters have been shared with me.
“Personally, I’ve spent my total 20 yr profession at Springhill Lake,” reads one. “I started as a pupil trainer and am now the Literacy Educational Lead Trainer. I’ve seen many directors come and go all through this time and know the way the ‘unsuitable match’ can injury our morale in addition to our day-to-day capabilities as a employees and college neighborhood. I can say with certainty and readability that Chris’ dedication to our work has not and won’t be matched by one other.”
Particular schooling trainer Danielle Todd-Jones has taught for 20 years and has spent 18 of these at Springhill Lake Elementary College. She credit Wichtendahl with serving to her get by way of her first yr of educating and as being the rationale she acquired her grasp’s diploma in particular schooling.
Wichtendahl was serving to college students with particular wants thrive usually schooling lecture rooms earlier than that grew to become widespread observe, Todd-Jones stated.
“She at all times made certain it wasn’t ‘them and us,’ ” she stated. “Everybody was included. They have been all our youngsters.”
Moss, whose son was a pupil of Todd-Jones years in the past, stated Wichtendahl made certain he didn’t really feel singled out. Todd-Jones described her as doing that for a lot of college students. She stated every college yr often begins with Wichtendahl getting backpacks full of college provides to kids whose households couldn’t afford them.
“She fights for the kiddos,” Todd-Jones stated. “She fights for the lecturers.”
In her letter, she described Wichtendahl as greater than a particular schooling coordinator.
“She was and continues to be the one whom employees talks to when they’re battling change, college students who want extra assist, or simply to vent as a result of some days are actually arduous,” it reads. “She presents a protected house for workers, college students, and fogeys to navigate elementary schooling.”
Todd-Jones acknowledged in her letter that there’ll come a day when Wichtendahl just isn’t a part of the college’s neighborhood. However proper now, she wrote, the college wants her.