Mademoiselle Ann Clevenger of the French department spends around five hours on Saturday grading assignments for the week. On Sunday, she spends another four hours on planning. On top of that, there’s putting everything on Canvas and printing out work. As the sole instructor of the French department, Clevenger has to balance three different classes this term, all at different levels of comprehension and skill.
“[Being the only French teacher] can be lonely,” Clevenger said. “I have to do everything by myself. I have to do the creating of everything, the thinking of everything, the planning of everything, the organizing of everything. All the themes, all the lessons, I’ve had to develop [them] myself over all the years.”
This isolation is seen not only at Westview but across the district. Clevenger is the only teacher that instructs AP French at PUSD, with most schools only offering up to French 7-8, or simply not having a French program at all. This is a contrast to other language departments, such as Spanish, which goes all the way to 9-10 and has six teachers on campus.
“I hear in the hallway, one Spanish teacher could say ‘I created the quiz for this unit, here it is’ and, you just saved [the other Spanish teachers] 30 minutes,” Clevenger said. “Or something like ‘Here’s a great idea I have’ or ‘Here’s a great resource’ and they don’t have to spend another hour of their time finding it.”
Without other teachers to share the workload, Clevenger’s work often piles up. AP French consumes a great deal of her time, not only because it calls for so much planning and grading, but because she has to complete all of it in a timely manner. The fast-paced nature of this class requires all the work to have quick feedback. Often, this means she devotes significant weekend time to her job.
“When you’re grading [AP French], the grading takes that much longer and [the students] need instant feedback,” Clevenger said. “You can’t wait until a week later. You have to grade the essays that day.”
Even though she works so hard, Clevenger is still drawn to her position because of the people she teaches. Every so often, the AP French students accompany Clevenger on a trip to Europe. In that time, she is able to observe her pupils applying the knowledge that she tought them and watch them use the skills that they acquired over the past few years of classes. Watching them communicate and converse in French is a huge payoff for Clevenger because it solidifies that all the effort she put into her teaching has paid off.
“There’s a lot of drawbacks to teaching, there’s a lot of negative stuff,” Clevenger said. “But at the end of the day, for me, it’s the kids who keep me coming back. [They] make me laugh every day, I think about [them], I worry about [them]. [My students are] kind of like my kids away from home.”
Although Clevenger has the help of her 2 teaching assistants during some class periods, they are not legally permitted to grade work. Despite that, Clevenger said they are valuable to her. Throughout the day, she has them to rely on for last minute needs and assistance while she is busy teaching the class or helping her students.
“They help me with a lot of secretarial work [like] stapling, cutting, organizing, and filing,” Clevenger said.
Current and former students of Clevenger’s have only good things to say about their French teacher. She has been teaching at Westview since it opened, and throughout her 22 years at the school, she has built a reputation of being both reliable and compassionate. Every day, French student Morgan Wong (9) sees all the work Clevenger puts into her classes for her students. Alongside her peers, she agrees that Clevenger is one of the most motivated teachers she’s had.
“I see Mademoiselle [Clevenger] working hard every day,” Wong said. “She always has something going on, whether it’s teaching us or doing her own grading and planning while we complete one of the assignments she’s given us. Her class is so fun every day because you never really know what you’re going to walk into. Sometimes we do fun games, sometimes we do word searches, stuff like that. It’s never boring.”