AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR: SAMANTHA DIDRICHSEN

I had the privilege of meeting a former teacher/educator from the Bronx, NY, who is now living in Buffalo.  I don’t know how we started talking about Education but she opened up and talked to me about the way politicians and government give very little or no priority to Education; you can see it in the way they treat teachers, educators, and the teacher shortage nationwide, and the on-going need for qualified teachers in troubled areas. With all these concerns, you would think teachers would be welcomed with open arms, but that is not the case. After talking to her for a while, I took interest in her story and asked her if it was ok for me to publish her story by asking her questions regarding her experience.

Here it goes:

Latino Village: Can you begin by telling us a little about your background and your educational preparation for becoming a teacher?

 Samantha Didrichsen: Most of my career, thus far, has been in the realm of early childhood education, which in New York, ranges from birth to second grade. I hold two education degrees: a Bachelor of Science (Early Childhood Education), with a concentration in Biology from SUNY Fredonia in 2015; and a Master of Science in Education (Special Education & Early Childhood Intervention),  graduating from  Hofstra University in 2017. With the two degrees, plus my exams are taken, I am certified to teach both general and special education students within the early childhood population. I also specialize in ABA (applied behavior analysis) from my Hofstra program, which uses the science of behavior analysis to change social behaviors. Many times, this is associated with the treatment and education of those with autism, but this can be used for anyone. The techniques that I use in my carbeer for all my students comes from ABA. I’ve held several different types of positions since my Fredonia graduation. I’ve been a toddler teacher, a behavior technician, an elementary school special education teacher, a preschool special education teacher, and an early intervention teacher, and some I’ve held at the same time!

Latino Village: What made you decide to go into teaching?

 Samantha Didrichsen: When asked this question, people tend to have some sort of dramatic story to tell about how a teacher affected them and made them decide to become teachers. This is not my story. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure what to do with my life for a very long time. As a child, I had this dream of being a published writer, mostly inspired by J.K Rowling. I was an avid reader (I’m jealous of past me). I would write so many different stories of my original characters or fan fiction from different anime series. One time I wrote an original story that went beyond two-hundred pages! I did it all for fun. I was pushed to go to college. My father had gone to college, and my mother tried, but it wasn’t for her. They wanted their children to do better than them, and I can understand that. When I was a junior at Massapequa Senior High School back on Long Island, I spoke with my A.P English Composition teacher, Mr. Merges, about my idea of getting a degree in Creative Writing. He told me to think about that—maybe consider English education instead. We went back and forth slightly about this. I feel that he understood my love of writing but maybe wanted some job security for this poor young woman who had some serious self-esteem issues. There was a point where he told me, “You know you’ll have to get a master’s, right?” and I said, “That’s okay.” He shrugged and said, “Alright then!” After looking more into it, I felt that English education wasn’t for me. However, I found something else that I might like, which was early childhood education. It struck a chord with me. The high school had a relationship with Junior Achievement to do volunteer work in elementary school classrooms in the district, and so I signed up and did that. I also earned high school credit to help me graduate on time (I had moved into the district and was short a credit) by completing a summer internship called Summer STARS, where you volunteer as an assistant at the summer school. I enjoyed working with the preschool students the most, so that sold it for me.

Latino Village: If you don’t mind me asking, how much did your education cost?

Samantha Didrichsen: In total, my entire education, grants, and scholarships put into it cost me a little less than $100,000 in student loan debt. If I could estimate my cost per degree, I believe that my time at Fredonia cost me somewhere between $25-28,000. From there, however, is where I had to take the big pill for my state-mandated master’s degree. Hofstra was extremely expensive. Getting into a SUNY or a CUNY for your graduate degree is an accomplishment, as they are exceptionally selective because of the limited seats and lower cost in tuition and fees. At that time, I required housing if I were to continue my education in New York, and I didn’t want to teach full-time and get a degree at the same time. While I loved Western New York, Buffalo State was the only one that had the early childhood special education graduate degree that I wanted, but they didn’t offer graduate housing. So, I was forced to look back in the New York City and Long Island areas at their private institutions, as the CUNYs also didn’t offer houses.  Hofstra did, and the graduate program that I graduated from with them was also affiliated with a big federal grant to boost the amount of early childhood special education teachers in the field. Since I needed housing, Hofstra easily put another $80-90,000 into my debt within two years.

Latino Village: I rememberr that you had taught in the Bronx, in a lower-income neighborhood where education is most needed, can you tell us about your experience?

 Samantha Didrichsen: Absolutely. This will be a long story, as I taught for both the public school system and a non-profit organization down in the South Bronx. During my final spring semester at Hofstra, it was evident that I would most likely be teaching in New York City. I had plans to move into my then-fiancé’s home with him and his parents in Rockland County, so I was applying for teaching positions both in Rockland, Manhattan, and the Bronx due to us being in the lower Hudson Valley. I was very interested in the pub public school stems at the time, as I was very supportive of them. I had attended public education my entire life, minus my time at Hofstra.  I applied to be a Select Recruit in the Early Hiring program for the New York City Department of Education, which I’ll be calling the city DOE from now on. The city and state Department of Education offices are two separate entities. At the time in 2017, the Select Recruit program was aiming to do early hiring to get more teachers into the Bronx.  I had gone to three hiring events and was turned down by at least a dozen principals on the spot. One principal slammed my resume down on the table as soon as she started reading it and said, “I hate when you people do this!” I asked what the problem was, and she pointed to my certificates.

“You people when you only get certified up to second grade!” This means, that we early childhood professionals who don’t get an additional degree or advanced certificate expand our age range to 6^th grade. I should have realized that that fast chat wasn’t going anywhere, and I should have walked away. But that’s all in hindsight now, and you always learn with experience. I was called back to several different schools in the Bronx for second interviews. I even demoed for two. Out of the two, I was offered a position at P.S 226 as a Kindergarten special education teacher to work in an ICT classroom (integrated co-teaching with a general education teacher). I thought I was set. City DOE public records had shown that the school’s data was relatively well for them down in the University Heights section. However, the retention of staff statistics wasn’t that fantastic. School quality reports for the 2016-17 school year only showed that the number of teachers with three or more years of experience working within that school was 53%. This didn’t pique my interest at the time. Before the first day of school, my position changes twice. Over the summer, I received notice that there weren’t enough Kindergarteners coming in with IEPs (Individualized Education Plan), so they were turning me into a SETSS teacher (Special Education Teacher Support Service) to work within the early childhood grades and pull students out of their classrooms to form academic support groups. Then, a week before school started, I was notified that again I was going to be teaching in an ICT 2^nd grade classroom with 28 children and one general education teacher. It didn’t take long for me to find out that not only did my new partner didn’t want to teach in a special education classroom, but why I have moved around—there were already special education teachers quitting before the school year started. By the end of the first month, my partner and I had a rocky relationship. And I can understand. When you don’t get a choice as to what and how you’re teaching, it can be beyond frustrating. Plus, we both had very different styles of teaching and beliefs on how to teach the children.

She was very forceful and would yell at the children and belittle them, just like many of the other teachers at the school. That wasn’t me and I don’t support that. As the year went on, we barely spoke, as she would belittle me as well and eventually turn the grade against me. Backtracking slightly, but come October of 2017, I was working two jobs at 226. My supervisor, one of the assistant principals, pulled me and my mandated teacher mentor into her office one day. I thought it was to finally set up a mentoring schedule, as I hadn’t received any mentor time, and the school needed to report that to the state. My supervisor tells me that for two periods of the day, I would work as a SETSS teacher with a caseload of kindergarten students. Meaning I would be leaving my assigned classroom to gather five Kindergarten students, bring them to the defunct library that hadn’t been properly used in at least thirty years, and teach them based on their IEPs with no curriculum for me to use. As the year went on, my second-grade classroom added more students. Eventually, we hit the cap of an ICT classroom and had 32 students. One of the students was very abusive. He would round his peers up to gang up on me and physically harm me and run out of the classroom. It wasn’t uncommon for me to come home with scratches and bruises. The administration would never back me up or help me. The only people who tried to help me in any of these situations were the wonderful social workers from Turnaround for Children, who were working under a grant there at the school for a limited number of years. They would help me use calm talking methods to redirect the students back into a more stable mindset. My supervisor would blame me for the beatings and disruptions and told me that if I just taught, this wouldn’t be happening. I received multiple disciplinary meetings with letters going into my file. Come March of 2018, the Kindergarten self-contained classroom teacher quit. As the only other person who could teach young children with disabilities, my administration again moved me to that classroom but did not have any hope for me. My principal, upon telling me of the change, told me that I needed to be the strong teacher that she saw during the demo, because now when things happen, I don’t do anything. The only people who believed in me were again the staff from Turnaround for Children.

We came up with plans for as smooth of a transition as possible for these students. However, come April 10^th, I had a mental breakdown during what would have been my final disciplinary meeting. At every disciplinary meeting in the city public schools, you were allowed to bring your UFT (United Federation of Teachers) union, representative. The UFT is the union that covers public school teachers in the city. During this meeting, I can’t recall what set me off, but I broke down in tears and stormed out of the meeting room. I had some sort of episode that I couldn’t control. While I’ve been on medication for depression and anxiety for several years now, during that time, I struggled. But I finally broke up during that meeting. A kind cafeteria woman saw me sobbing and wheezing in the hallway, and she calmed me down. She said, “They always do this.”  That moment shaped me into the educator that I am today. I gathered myself and walked back into the meeting. I sat down calmly with my union rep still there, and both assistant principals. I excused my absence and told my supervisor to continue. She went on concerning an incident between a student of mine and his aide, as they had taken a walk in the hallway and my student had gotten loose. She said, “I came into your classroom, and you reported that you didn’t know where they were.” I responded, “No, I said they were on a walk.” She looked up from her papers with a smile and said, “You reported that you didn’t know where he was.” I repeated, “I said they were on a walk.” It was clear that she was very upset but went on with the meeting. I defended myself as my UFT rep did nothing, just as he hadn’t done in the other disciplinary meetings we had. The meeting ended with another letter in my file. At the end of that day, I packed up my items from my closet and left knowing that I wasn’t coming back. I did not complete my first year of classroom teaching, and I didn’t care. I used up my final three sick days, and on that Friday the 13^th, at 3:00 PM, I sent an email to my principal notifying her of my resignation effective immediately. This legally affects me to this day. When you leave a public-school position in the city DOE, you need to give at least 30 days’ notice. This is how one leaves in good standing. Upon leaving, you are not allowed to teach in a public school or UPK (universal pre-k) position for a full year in that specific zoned district your school was in.

After that, you can return. Otherwise, you were free to teach elsewhere.  If you don’t give that appropriate notice, you are blacklisted from the entire New York City public school system. Your file is coded, and you are never allowed to teach in a public school or UPK classroom there ever again. That is the position that I continue to find myself in, and I am fine with this. From there until that September, I worked full-time as an early intervention teacher at an early intervention agency up in Orange County. Rockland is the smallest county in New York, so I wasn’t too surprised that none of their agencies were hiring. But that’s how much I wanted to get back into early childhood—real early childhood. I was willing to drive 40 minutes north of me for less pay because I wanted to go back to my roots. I enjoyed my time working with infants and toddlers so much that, when I started my new preschool special education job in the East Tremont section of the Bronx, I kept some EI cases on the side to work on in the evenings. In September 2018, as a newlywed, I started working at a non-profit called Volunteers of America-Greater New York. I specifically worked at their Bronx Early Learning Center, which is NAEYC certified and dedicated to serving preschoolers with disabilities. I was hired to lead one of their smaller ratio classrooms with an 8:1:2 ratio (8 students, 1 lead teacher, and two assistants). This center was even more unique, as every classroom was a certified bilingual classroom. The lead teacher would be a monolingual English speaker, and the two assistants would give support in whatever languages were expressed in the classroom. Though the East Tremont section has its roots as a former Jewish neighborhood, today it is predominately Dominican. Many of my families didn’t speak English, so my assistants were of great help. What’s more, my entire classroom was filled with students with autism. With my ABA background, the center hired me as they felt I would be a good fit for them. They used to have an ABA program, but it was scrapped several years ago. Thus, the classroom that I ran was very ABA-lite, using some methods in small and whole group instruction. My students learned how to communicate using expressive language or using a different way, such as a PECS book (Picture Exchange Communication System) or an alternative augmentative device like a tablet. My co-workers were wonderful men and women who did enjoy working with their students. And because of them, I learned some Spanish! I have funny stories from my time there. I would work there until August 2020, when I was virtually teaching from up here in Buffalo.

Latino Village: Where has your career taken you since?

 Samantha Didrichsen: After leaving VOA, I started working at The Summit Center. I was initially hired as a SEIT (Special Education Itinerant Teacher) to work 1-on-1 with their preschoolers in the school and around Western New York, but they offered me a different position due to COVID restrictions at the time. I was teaching in one of their Kindergarten classrooms. I spent several months there, but in the end, it wasn’t working out and I left in February.  I currently work as a SEIT through Buffalo Hearing & Speech and work with young children from infancy through preschool with delays and disabilities by traveling to their homes, childcare centers, or schools. Currently, I am considering a doctoral program at the University at Buffalo. I am interested in supporting the creation of an early childhood special education program at any of the local colleges or universities in the region to help generate more pre-service teachers into that part of the special education field, just as Hofstra had done. There is a large deficit in the number of people who are licensed to work within the Birth-2^nd grade special education population here in Western New York, with Buffalo State being the only granting college in the region. Because of this, many infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are going without services, and preschool special education classrooms are being taught by certified teaching assistants instead of certified early childhood special educators. I am also going to be published around November 15th, 2022. I conducted ABA research at Hofstra as part of my multi-project capstone (comprehensive exam, research, and student teaching). After years of trying to get it published, Hofstra’s very own online journal titled Special Education Research, Policy & Practice has decided to publish my research paper. The article is titled, “Familiar Vs. Unfamiliar Stimuli in Multiple Stimulus Preference Assessments”.

Latino Village: Now, we can find a lot of the numbers online but how was the compensation, were you fairly compensated for doing arguably the most important job in society?

 Samantha Didrichsen: To answer this, we need to break that up by the different jobs I held while working downstate: NYC public school teaching, early intervention teaching, and non-profit teaching. Public school salary: At the time I started, my salary was about $60,000. This wouldn’t go up for another 5 years until I became eligible for tenure. After that, the salary increase would have been dramatic. Public school teachers in New York City who put 25 years in can most definitely hit $100,000 by the time they retire with a pension. However, where you begin teaching can make it or break it for you in the long run, as evident by my experience. Non-profit teaching: By the time I left VOA, my salary matched my former city DOE salary at $60,000. Each non-profit may pay differently, but with my master’s and my experience, this is where I ended. Early intervention teaching: This is done by hours billable and is run by the county’s Department of Health. I believe each 45-minute session was around $40 in Orange County. So, it’s all tallied up at the end of each day when you submit your billing, and that’s how much you made. Let me quickly state this: don’t be fooled by these numbers. It may have looked like I was making excellent money downstate. I was not. A teacher’s pay generally reflects the tax rate in that given area. I may have been paid $60,000 in salary, but I was heavily taxed. Generally, the more a teacher is paid, usually, the higher the taxes are. I also paid $250 a month in tolls to cross either the Tappan Zee Bridge or the George Washington Bridge to get to the Bronx, on top of the $200 a month I paid for monthly parking. The Orange County rate is affected the same way, as the state’s early intervention program is tax-funded, so it all depends on the taxes collected in that county. So, do I think that we’re compensated? No, I, unfortunately, don’t. There are many reasons why. Most notably in the public schools across the state, but especially in the city, you will find a lot of school-tax waste. The extra administrator there, the new consultant here, while the public-school teachers are using money out of their wallets to get materials for their students. As for non-profit salaries, that also fluctuates by government funding and donations. For each non-profit, it’s a little different as to how much funding comes from the government in terms of tax programs (like Medicaid for therapeutic services) and grants. Private donations by businesses and individuals are the best thing for them! Taxes and grants come with strings attached and can only be used for certain things. Donations can be used for anything, so please consider donating to that non-profit you’ve been thinking about!

Latino Village: Can you tell us about your experience with the Teachers Union?

 Samantha Didrichsen: My only experience has been with the UFT down in the city. The organizations that I’ve worked with since are not part of any city or state union. As previously stated, I feel that the UFT didn’t do anything for me when I was in crisis. It was clear that P.S 226 was building a case against me to have me lose not only my job but maybe even my teaching certificates. My union rep was friendly and nice—he worked in my school as a paraprofessional. He was very knowledgeable about policies in the city schools as well. However, he never spoke up for me during any of my disciplinary meetings. After each one, we would talk about them, but he would say that they didn’t say anything that would cause the unit to get involved. If that’s the case, then I disagree, as the way a teacher is treated should be enough to have someone speak up for you. Our UFT regional leader came to the school once to hold a meeting with us teachers to see how things were going. We met in private in a meeting room and we all discussed the abuse the administration gave to all of us. I specifically spoke to him after the meeting and told him that I was a first-year teacher and everything that was happening to me. He told me that once the open market opened in the spring, he would help put in a good word for me to have my transfer. When things got bad and I was on the verge of quitting, I emailed and called him multiple times asking for help. Never once did he ever pick up the phone, call me back or email me back. While I am not anti-union, I do believe that when they get to a certain size that they forget what they’re there for.

Latino Village: What do you think are the top 3 things that need to change to improve the teaching profession?

 Samantha Didrichsen: An administrator that would care and listen. The support I’ve received at VOA and from Buffalo Hearing & Speech has helped me grow. When a teacher is trusted and heard, they will succeed, and thus the students will succeed. In terms of early childhood education, we continue to be viewed as overly certified babysitters or daycare people. Though actually, I have never once “sat on a baby” or “cared for a day.” We are childcare providers, preschool teachers, or K-2^nd grade professionals. Society, including administrators, should understand the importance of properly trained professionals caring and working with people at one of the most vulnerable times of their lives. We need to cut the school tax waste. Look where the money is going. The money needs to go for salaries, school materials, and community activities.

Latino Village: Is there one more piece you would like to add?

 Samantha Didrichsen: Your child is also my child. They aren’t just my students. When I talk to people about them, I always say, “My kid” “My boy” or “My girl.” It doesn’t matter if I have them for a whole school year or two months. They are my kids, and that’s how I treat them. Please know that it is hard when it’s time for me to say, “You’re going to Kindergarten!” We are on the same team. Please remember this as we go along this journey together.