LOSE-LOSE-LOSE

Just don't feel like working much right now. I'm in a muddle: in a new classroom, behind the district's pacing guide due in part to our trailer situation, and yet expected to jettison another Monday's classes for district-mandated CLAD training. At the same time, I'm supposed to administer the district's 1st-quarter benchmark exam before Wednesday even though my students have yet to cover all of that material.

It's a lose-lose situation for me. Either I blow off the training (risking administrative reprimand) to find time to prep and administer the benchmark, or else I administer the benchmark as is, leading to hideous scores that could land me under an administrator's scrutiny. In fact, it's lose-lose-lose, since every day I'm out of the classroom or doing anything other than the state standards my students fall further behind. In a just world, the district would not require me to take benchmarks now, or compel me to get training that isn't legally required, or put up extra hurdles to getting my students up to speed with the state standards.

I have to confess to a personality flaw. There are few things that bother me more than getting blamed for things that are outside of my control, and I just don't see how I should be held responsible for the (legal) hire of a teacher nine years ago without a CLAD certificate, or for placing that teacher for over two months in a 'classroom' without the ability to do laboratory science, or for the two unscheduled delays in returning that teacher and his classes into a real classroom.

Can I cite the administration for bad faith, poor planning and execution in these matters? Evidently not. Why, then, is it appropriate for me to face the possibility of a poor employee evaluation due to the quirky moves of administration?