Unapologetically Personal

Reel Urban News Exclusive

By Dave Devereaux

It has been three years since I retired from the Los Angeles Unified School District. I was a Principal who was stressed out, disenchanted, lost and mourning. All those emotions went to work with me daily the last six months of my career, but I put on my most brave and professional face so that others would not see that I was so near a nervous breakdown. 

At that time, I was flying back and forth to Texas to spend my week at the hospital with my father, who had experienced an aortic aneurysm on December 26, 2017. He was 79 years old and had never been ill before, so this was particularly difficult for me and my two brothers. He survived for five months in the hospital and I was present for my week each month. When he passed on May 18, 2018, it was heartbreaking because he thought he would recover enough to go home again. And so did we. I  was not ready to say goodbye, but we were grateful that we had more years with him since our mother passed in 2002. I believe the three of us are still grieving her loss today. 

I remained in Texas for three weeks longer to begin sorting his business affairs, and then reluctantly returned to work in Los Angeles.  I had already made up my mind to retire with the hope of moving back to Texas to care for my father.  Upon my return, I could have rescinded my decision to do so and continued working at the local district level, but my interest toward education was none existent at this point. I had no desire to be around the dishonesty that so many had displayed toward me and my school any more..

The 2017-2018 school year had become the worst year of my tenured career. I had been at Barack Obama Global Prep Academy as Principal for nearly three years and that year had become one power struggle after the next. I had a director that had been nonexistent the previous year because she was working on her dissertation, and my school was always the district’s afterthought. All of a sudden, she identifies policies and procedures that she did not like and went about criticizing every decision that I made without the courtesy of asking if that had worked in the past. She showed up the summer prior and my staff immediately recognized that the upcoming year with her would be a struggle.

They were right. She interrupted meetings, disparaged my team’s efforts and peeked around corners as if we were not handling business. I was made aware that she made negative comments about me and the school to the local district higher ups. Rather than call me to see what I may need, they believed her. Yet, all the while, I never made any comment about how she was none existent the prior year. It became overbearing and disrespectful to me especially as I had developed a culture on the campus that was beginning to show positive results. 

I became less confident in my decision making, nervous about being observed so intensely and overall anxious all the time. She succeeded in creating a less confident leader who no longer felt like the school belonged to me. My admin team worked tirelessly to continue with our vision.  We recognized from day one that Barack Obama Global Prep would be a challenge, but none of us shied away from the tremendous responsibility that was bestowed upon us. We were committed to the school, even though sometimes the community did not recognize that. However my director ruined many of the relationships created there because she did not understand the culture or the community.

She would go behind me and make promises to parents that were never kept. I had developed a way of working with diverse and sometimes unconventional parents and community leaders. All of that began to work against me and I felt my integrity and professionalism were at stake. Her consistent response to me was always, “Dave I really like you and want you to succeed”, however her actions said otherwise. I was not her personal friend and could have cared less whether anyone liked me. I had a job to do and my focus was the students and staff. It all took away so much, I was unable to continue defending myself, while dealing with an infirmed parent and then later dealing with my grief and loss.

I was near a nervous break. Unable to right myself each day and slipping further away from the profession. I began to dislike playing this educational and political game surrounding funding and programs, and had a total disconnect from pedagogy and curriculum. I hated my profession and resented the school and all it’s issues.  I did not feel as if I was a failure, but I did think I was being prevented from completing what they had sent me there to do, which was make change, identify the areas of need and implement my vision.  The school had been a topic of controversy from its inception in that it was placed in a community that already had three middle schools serving the area. The challenge was to populate the school with students from the area, but pull from the three surrounding middle schools. The only problem is those schools served about five different gangs that called the area home. Now you are mixing kids who identify with another group under one campus. It became a  recipe for disaster.  I felt as if I was losing a war and myself daily. 

As I was asked to return to the local district office to support operations the last two months of my career, I discovered that I still had a love for some aspects of school administration.  However, it was still not enough to make me want to stay. I had reached my limits. As I asked to not support any of the schools that my past director serviced, I still had to see her in the office on brief moments. I felt lost and a failure at allowing someone to make me feel less than. It was not until I took inventory of myself  that I realized much of this would not have been so traumatic had I not been dealing with the grief and loss of my father. The district had refused me FMLA because my dad did not live with me and I was forced to juggle travel, caregiving and work simultaneously in order to meet district standards and unrealistic goals.

However, I learned so much about myself in the few months before retirement that I had no idea I did not know. I realized that I was a good Principal who led with empathy and structure. I had made improvements at Barack Obama Global Prep that were not experienced with the five prior Principals. I know now that some situations require intensive support and if you are not given that, they are destined to show slow improvement. That demonstrates this is not a failure as long as you have tried. And I most certainly tried. The Los Angeles Unified School District is a big organization and many times the politics of the day overshadows the great things taking place on those campuses. We, as administrative leaders, often did not get the proper recognition for innovative efforts or successes. LAUSD is notorious for moving to the next trend without letting the current trend flourish and become an example of any success. This leads to very frustrated principals.

Retirement, on the other hand has been great. After one year of doing nothing but contemplating my next move, I was given the opportunity to begin writing for Reel Urban News and admittedly it has been a game changer for me. I have been able to express myself in ways that would have never been allowed before on various topics. I’m not against LAUSD, but will be the first to warn prospective administrators to be careful of those that mean them no good and to not allow anyone to minimize your efforts toward any career goal. Even board members can be partial and create a hostile work environment for an educator if you are not paying attention. I forgive all those who disparaged me at Barack Obama Global Prep, or the district office,  with their negative comments and doubts. I have truly benefited from the experiences I had with LAUSD all those years as a teacher, Assistant Principal, district administrator and Principal. I caution new talents to stay away from the political side and the gossip and fight for the rights of students always. After all, the goal of education is to do just that, educate our youth. 

I am unapologetic for this article. I waited to write about my last experiences for fear of sounding angry. I know now that I just may be however, but as you have read, I also may have had cause. I do know that the past year with distance learning and all the issues experienced with COVID-19, I am not sorry I left the profession when I did. I chalk it up to my spirit knowing when it was time to go. I pray for my kindred professionals weathering the daily storms that come with a pandemic and a district office that is incapable of offering comprehensive support because many of them have been so removed from the site, they have forgotten they work for a school system and what it’s really like sorting issues on a campus daily. I say, stay the course until your inner spirit tells you it is time to leave. And when that time comes, don’t question it, just follow that voice and you will never regret your decision. There will always be new adventures around the corner, you just have to choose one at a time. I have done so and life is good.