My Plight Is Nowhere Near This Difficult

My wife is a substitute teacher for a number of school districts in the Vancouver area. She has been a sub for about six years, but has been doing everything in her power for the last couple years to become a "contracted" full-time teacher.

The district she has worked the hardest for is the Vancouver School District. She has held short and long-term sub jobs and even a few short-term "terminable" positions (basically taking over for contracted teachers who need to take some leave).

She has jumped through every hoop the district has put up to try and get a contract, but year after year we watch painfully as they fill their empty positions with fresh-from-college people (some from completely different States) who we can't help but believe aren't nearly as qualified as Heather. One year in particular Heather was called in at the last minute to start the school year for a girl that had been hired that didn't even have her paperwork in order yet. Heather had to open that girl's class while the girl got her certificates. It was a very frustrating time! Even after the girl got her paperwork in order, it was obvious to Heather that she didn't have a clue how to run her classroom. Heather helped her out a lot, but it was still very frustrating. Why was that girl hired, not Heather?

We've learned through the years that logic and fairness play no part in hiring in the VSD though. Heather has letters of reference from a few of the most highly thought of principles in the district. She even had a petition started on her behalf and signed by nearly everyone in one of Vancouver's nicer schools.

What we've determined is that the gate keeper is a lady in Human Resources that seems to make all the hiring decisions. So even though Heather has a principle saying she's great and they'd love to have her at their school, it doesn't matter as this HR lady has the ultimate power.

Ultimately, it's proving incredibly frustrating. Here we are with school ready to start in a couple days, and still no job for Heather. And to make matters worse, a couple days ago we heard through the grapevine that Vancouver was desperately looking to fill some last minute openings. HELLO!! And this after Heather had left two notes and two voicemails within a week for this HR lady.

It's hard at this point not to become a conspiracy theorist. Has Heather been black-listed for some reason that they're not sharing with us? Does VSD not hire their subs because they're afraid of losing a good sub? Does Heather not meet some "profile" that would make her more hirable (ie. race, gender, etc.)? Is Heather too qualified (she is about 10 hours of work away from having her Masters Degree and is thus more expensive than a fresh off their Bachelor student)? Has Heather somehow inadvertently pissed off this HR lady?

WE JUST DON'T KNOW!

And so here we go again. Round and round the merry-go-round. Heather does everything she can to get into Vancouver, and we watch as they give the positions to under-qualified, not-nearly-as-passionate people!