In Maryland, Filipino teachers get a raw deal

We’ll call her Maria. She won’t reveal her full name because of the legal fight she is waging. But she is angry. She is one of hundreds of Filipino teachers who got caught in an ugly legal mess in a school district in Maryland. Headlines last week had made it sound like they had scored a victory. The US Labor Dept. ordered Prince George’s County to reimburse roughly $4 million to the teachers who were improperly required to pay fees that should have been shouldered by the school district. But in fact, the Filipino teachers were also going to be penalized. As part of its punishment, the school district also agreed to a ban in hiring foreign teachers. Suddenly, the Filipinos who were recruited from the Philippines in the early 2000s faced the prospect of losing their jobs. For many of her colleagues, Maria says, it could mean a painful turn in their journey as Filipino teachers who came to America to find a better life and to help a school district badly in need of dedicated educators. Returning to the Philippines is not the problem. But for many of them, it could mean throwing away years of hard work. This was not how they thought their journey would end. Reacting to the Labor Dept. ruling, the school district said in a statement, "It is time for us to move forward and continue to place highly effective teachers in every classroom in order to provide our students with the necessary skills they need to be successful." Nearly a decade ago, the district found those "highly effective teachers" in the Philippines. The Maryland school system was desperately in need of skilled teachers, but there weren’t enough in the U.S. So school officials looked elsewhere, mainly the Philippines. They turned to the Filipinos for help. It wasn’t hard to convince them. The Filipino teachers would be able to earn in a month what they make in the Philippines in a year. A fair deal, it seemed. But then it suddenly fell apart. The Filipinos followed the rules. It was the school district that broke them. Now, the Filipino teachers were going to pay the steeper penalty. "Parang ginagago ang mga teachers. They treated the teachers with disrespect," Maria says. That’s because the district leaders, she argued, played games, and made promises that they knew had no chance of becoming reality. "Buhay ng mga tao ang pinaglaruan e. .. They played around with people’s lives." In a statement, the school district said the ban on foreign hiring was "not the outcome we had hoped for." The local teachers union also highlighted the contributions of the Filipino teachers, saying in a statement that "Our international teachers have provided great value to the district serving in some of our most difficult classroom situations and doing so without complaint." "When this district had a huge recruitment problem, they provided an immediate fix to the restrictions imposed by the No Child Left Behind Act and the need to have a highly qualified teacher in every classroom," the union said. Spokesman Briant Coleman said in an email that the district "did everything possible to retain these excellent and valued employees. However, in the final analysis of the current state of our shrinking school budget and mounting legal fees, we determined that we simply could not afford to continue to operate this program." But Maria says they were getting mixed messages from the district over the past months. Just recently, they were told that everything would be okay, that they would be able to stay, that the district would renew their contracts. A teacher who identified herself as Charlene also complained about the way they were treated in a comment on the Washington Times Web site. She said she had been "begging" the district "to just tell me what their plans for me are. They said hold on... They have been promising me that they WILL renew my visa." "I was just wasting my time waiting... I could have planned for something else. Now it is too late. It is even more too late for those whose visa expires in the 15th of this month." Maria is skilled and experienced teacher, and was quickly placed in one of the district schools. She took the job for a clear reason: Life could be more financially stable for them in the U.S. But it was a tough transition for her. It meant giving up her career in the Philippines. And it meant being separated for at least six months from her family. "Gabi gabi umiiyak ako. I was crying every night," she said. Her family eventually joined her in Maryland. But then there was the adjustment to a new work environment, a new community. She missed home, she missed her immediate family and friends. But she pushed on, learning the system, applying her own vast experience as an educator to helping address the school district’s needs. "It’s not enough that you speak the language – na mahusay kang umingles," she says. "We had to study many things." And she had to adapt to a diverse community, and understand the racial dynamics in American society. And Maria did that, too, she says. "I don’t see color anymore," she says. "Bata yan e. They're all children whether they’re Filipino, Black, White, Hispanic. Natutunan mo rin silang mahalin. You learn to love all of them." She did so well as a Maryland teacher that she eventually got her labor certification, a step toward being able to apply for resident status. But with the ban, that could change. Without a sponsor, she may not be able to get a Green Card. The mess also blew up in the Filipino teachers’ faces at the worst time possible. The economic downturn led to major layoffs. Many American teachers are out of work. Maria says she understands that reality. "Taghirap sa Amerika ngayon. Life is hard in America today." But she rejects the argument of those who accuse her and others of stealing American jobs. The fact was, she said, they were recruited because there weren’t enough skilled teachers in the U.S. to fill a need. "Would they have traveled thousands of miles if they could find teachers locally? Talagang kulang ang teachers nila. They didn’t have enough teachers. … There are those who say we took their jobs. Why didn’t they apply then? They had a hard time looking for highly-qualified teachers." At the heart of her anger, she said, is the way the district treated her and her fellow Filipinos. "It’s like they said, ‘Sorry, times up. Thank you, ladies." Charlene, the other teacher, also had this to say in her comment on the Washington Times site: "’I pledge allegiance to the flag......with liberty and JUSTICE for all.. .’ ...I recite this with my students everyday and yet, I was the one who experienced INJUSTICE. I was not treated professionally. I know there are a lot of Americans who are jobless right now, especially teachers. I don't really care if I get terminated just like them, as long as the termination is according to the termination procedures. I was terminated because of [the school system’s] negligence." Maria says she is prepared to return home. "What’s the worst that can happen? To go home. How bad is that?" It will be another tough transition, she says. "Anong babalikan ko? What would I go back to at my age? In three years, I’ll be 50. Call Center? Maybe teach again. Of course, in six years, so many things have already changed." Maria adds: "We were treated so badly – and it wasn’t even our fault." Charlene echoed that bitterness. "They were the ones who went to my country to recruit me. Because of their mess, I lost a job, and I don’t know what future I will give to my child. The stress, depression, frustration that the people behind these things have caused me, cannot be paid by this money that will have pay." __________________ On Twitter @KuwentoPimentel.