Experienced Teachers

Re “When Experience Doesn’t Pay,” July 21.

Experience and knowledge are definitely a liability in Los Angeles Unified School District schools.

I spent two months interviewing for a teaching position at schools in the Valley and on the Westside. Not only was my nonminority status an issue, but the Rodriguez Consent Decree and the question of salary level were even more critical. I was considered too experienced (expensive) by many school administrators. Told by a district personnel specialist that an assignment at a Valley school would be very difficult, I was not given the name of even one school interviewing for vacant positions. I pursued leads for positions independent of the personnel unit and was fortunate to secure a position in an excellent school.

Later, I learned that a position I interviewed for at another desirable school (good location, good test scores, community involvement, integrated student body) was given to a relatively inexperienced teacher. I had met her three years ago while she was a beginning teacher. She had openly admitted that she was just teaching as a means to support herself while she pursued a writing career. Need I mention the position is in a subject area in which she has little background?

As a fresh-faced hire in LAUSD, I often felt the estrangement between new and experienced teachers and naively wondered about the underlying and sometimes open hostility between these two camps. As an inexperienced teacher I didn’t get it. Now, I get it.

PAULA DENEN

Los Angeles