Certifiably Crazy?

"Obviously, they don't think we can be trusted to govern our own profession…If they did, we wouldn't have some of these stupid rules," Fallon says. "She's been ripped off…The problem is, there's no legal remedy for it, because what you have is a bureaucracy dealing with another bureaucracy."

Patricia Madison, the state board officer who rejected Rodriguez's appeal, says the district is responsible for informing their applicants about requirements. But Fallon says the district puts that responsibility on the teacher, not the district.

"It's government's chronic defense," Fallon says.

There is also miscommunication within the district. Heather Browne, HISD's spokesperson, denies the district ever told Rodriguez to resign. But Warren says she did. Warren also says that Rodriguez spent four years as a "teacher's aide," when Rodriguez was classified by the state as a "critical shortage substitute" and performed the same duties as a regular teacher. Rodriguez has asked for copies of the appeal Warren filed on her behalf but has yet to receive them.

Now classified as a substitute teacher, Rodriguez is making $300 a week -- less than half of what she made before. She has no benefits. She doesn't know how long she can keep it up.

"A girl's gotta eat," she laughs. But she's somber about the thoughts of leaving education. "For a while there, I was thinking, 'Am I nuts?'…because that's how I was made to feel."

Fellow teachers have provided support. Mike Webster, another educator at Reagan, sent a faculty-wide e-mail asking for donations. He and Jessica Holt collected $1,500 in four days. Webster feels most of the contributors share his sentiment: "Why does a good teacher have to leave for such idiotic reasons?"

"She's held in high regard by her co-workers and staff," says principal Chavarria. "She's a definite asset to the building."

Some of her students cried when Rodriguez told them she may have to leave.

"She doesn't really deserve this," says one student, 15-year-old sophomore Mayra Garrido. "What they're doing to her is wrong."

Garrido describes Rodriguez's teaching style as simultaneously fun and strict.

"Sometimes we even talk to her like friends and everything," Garrido says.

Lauren Gomez, 16, says her mother was just as outraged as she was to hear that Rodriguez may have to quit. Every day after school, Gomez's mother asks her how her day went, and Gomez always has a good story about Rodriguez.

"We told her that we're not going to let her go anywhere," Gomez says.

But HISD's Warren says that even though Rodriguez may be a well-liked teacher, she failed to follow the rules. She likens Rodriguez's situation to that of a popular teacher-in-training who fails a certification test.

Rodriguez can make up her certification class this year and apply for renewal next year. However, with the steep cut in pay, she says she can't afford the $1,000 for required courses.

As she wrestles with her dilemma, dozens of students have asked her, "Will you be my teacher?"

For now, Rodriguez doesn't have that answer.