Frustrations

As many of you know, I recently had a job interview. (No, I haven't heard anything back from them yet.) In preparation for that job interview, I went on a hunt for my portfolio, only to find it missing: lost in the move.
For the most part, this wasn't horrific, because I could print off the portfolio again, with some minor updating I should have done anyway to include last year's teaching. However, the one thing I couldn't replace was the "letters of recommendation" section, since those who wrote them for me gave me hard copies only, and I had no digital copies to reprint.

Knowing it was very short notice, I nevertheless sent out an email to the people who had written those letters, asking if they could find them and resend. Only one person responded, and that only to say that she had no record of the letter, since they cleaned out their network drives at the end of the school year. I also asked my principal last year if she would write me a letter of recommendation/reference that I could include in my portfolio. She said "yeah, i can write you a letter talking about what you did here.." and said she'd email it to me. I know that I told her when the interview was, but Tuesday came and still no letter from her. I was a little disappointed, but I knew it was short notice, so oh well.

I just got the email from her. It is a listing of my duties more sparse than on my resume! It ignored the teaching jobs I'm not certified for, which will suggest to prospective employers that I'm padding my resume. There is no mention of my character as a worker, my ability as a teacher, anything. Not even a backhanded comment about me working hard to improve. "She taught this. She came here on this date, she got engaged, she resigned to be closer to family."
I admit that I was not the best teacher when I started working there- inexperienced, culture shocked, and homesick do not make a great environment for creating a good impression. Eventually, after months of struggle, I was finally presented with a list of "these are things you need to improve on," and a deadline by which I would be evaluated. When that evaluation came around, all involved expressed being impressed by the drastic improvements I'd made in every area required. However, those improvements had not boosted parental confidence the way they thought they would, and that was a factor in my choosing to resign.
This "letter of reference" - actually a letter of employment verification - in omitting saying ANYTHING positive about me at all, implies that I was an entirely unsatisfactory teacher 100% of the time. And that... hurts.

So... both of the people I was able to talk to about letters of recommendation declined. I guess I always suspected that they truly disliked me, and were just trying to be nice... now that I'm not there anymore, I guess they stopped trying. And, unfortunately, these are also both people that I must have on my resume as references, as they are my only "prior employers" in education.

I guess I'm a more horrible teacher than I thought...