You're Fired, Part Three

#3

Our final story of the sequence occurs much later than the first two, in 1979. I have been teaching for 6 or 7 years, first in Lake Forest and now in Mundelein. Besides teaching math classes, I am a football coach in the fall and a tennis coach in the spring. If you remember, I mentioned that I had become a member of the union when it was possible to do so. By this time, I have worked my way up to the position of President of the Mundelein Education Association, a branch of IEA/NEA. In Mundelein at that time, our superintendent was not happy with the outcome of the most recent round of teacher negotiations (I was the chief negotiator for the union). As a result, he fired me from my job as Freshman Tennis Coach. His stated purpose at the time was that we would need to meet from time to time to discuss the new contract and I could not do that if I was busy every afternoon coaching tennis. Our union contract did not cover extra-curricular positions, so there was not much I could do. He also tried to lower my evaluation as a teacher based on what I had done as union president, but when the IEA rep called the school's law firm to discuss that, that got thrown out pretty quickly. Within the next year, I found a new job in Barrington and moved out of Mundelein. My six years in Mundelein were very enjoyable. The guys I coached football and tennis with were great, and the people in the math department (and science department where my desk was) were good to work with. But it was time to move on. With the higher pay in Barrington, I could stop coaching and go back to school to get my Master's. And soon thereafter, there was the pitter - patter of tiny feet (at first - eventually they grew to a size 13) in the Armstrong household, and a new set of duties to take on.   

So, that's the story. Thanks for following along. We'll try to pass along some happier memories in the weeks to come.