Yes, chickens, it is true.

Our beloved Miss Jenny — the sometimes Brazilian Queen, with her straight talk on body parts and refreshingly honest sales tactics — has clocked her last Beauty U hour.

She told us earlier this week that she had given notice. I’m in a bit of a quandary about how to explain it to you, since the issues revolve heavily around the kind of interpersonal drama that I try to keep off this blog. It just isn’t relevant to our work here, though I’ll admit, it can often occupy a good portion of our 16 hours per week over there. In some ways, it’s like any workplace; egos get in the way, feathers get ruffled, sides get taken. And in some ways, it’s better — Beauty U isn’t any teacher’s full-time job, so you’d hope that would make the strife easier to let go than when you spend 40+ hours a week chained to your cubicle. And there’s a certain level of guaranteed respect from the students, even if colleagues don’t mix.

But in a lot of ways, it’s worse. The pay is bad — Miss Jenny has said it’s significantly less than $20 per hour; I’m guesstimating $15 or under, which only adds up to around $30K per year even if you worked full-time. And the management seems pretty checked out. Since our school is a satellite campus of the main Beauty U an hour away, visits from school owner Mr. G are rare. Miss Jenny gave her notice over a week ago and says he has yet to return any of her phone calls, let alone attempt some sort of conflict resolution. Who can blame him? At that price, in this economy, his workforce can be disposable. Word has it that two new teachers have already been hired to take her place.

Everyone is saddened by the breaking news. Miss Jenny likes teaching makeup more than the other teachers, so Meg and Stephanie are bummed because that was their main reason for coming to esthetics school. “I just feel like this place isn’t turning out to be what I expected,” says Stephanie. But the senior students tell us Miss Jenny isn’t the first teacher to quit abruptly. “There’s a lot of turnover, especially for the night classes,” Sue says.

Dear readers, don’t be too sad. This won’t be the last you’ll hear of Miss Jenny on Beauty Schooled because I’m hoping we’ll keep in touch. And she features in some school stories that I’ve had to file away for post-graduation publication.

But she’ll sure be missed around Beauty U.