.....Now
that it's been on the news, I can write about what is public knowledge.
Wednesday our principal called an emergency faculty meeting right after school.
Just like 3 years ago, they're trying to shut down the school I teach at, and
considering the current fiscal situation there is a good chance it's going to
happen. Enough of a chance that she asked the powers that be what she can
promise her staff concerning placement afterwards and passed that information on
to us. Provisional teachers, ones who have been teaching less 3 years or less,
are assured that they will still have jobs, those of us who are tenured, been
teaching longer than 3 years, are guaranteed placement somewhere.
.....If you
have been following my website long enough, you know that I took the job here
knowing they wanted to close the school down. You may also know that I've moved
around in my career a bit, by choice, so the possibility of changing schools
again does not scare me. I've got 14 more years before I can retire and there
never was a doubt in my mind that I wouldn't change schools at least a couple
times before then.
.....Add to
that the fact that as a Math teacher, I'm sure to have some choice in where I
end up. Still, I wasn't ready to move on yet, and at the risk of sounding like
Reverend Lovejoy's wife, I'm concerned about how well our students will do in a
big high school. Over the 3 years we have been a school of around 300 students,
we have had many that have tried a large school and have come back. Many of them
will be required to travel 6 miles to their home school, where they are used to
just walking around the block right now.
.....Anyway, we've been given the task of presenting our defense
to the school board next week. Four teachers and I have spent all our free time
in the conference room producing a presentation. After day 1 of 6 hours in a
room culling through documentation, I decided I really do love teaching. 3 hours
into today, day 2, when the principal walked in and asked how we were doing, the
science teacher and I clutched our heads and said, at the same time and without
prior discussion, "I think my head's going to explode."
.....So, if
you wonder why you don't hear from me for the next two weeks, here's my
schedule:
This Tuesday : present to school board, and I
actually have to make part of the presentation
Wednesday : Human-Computer Interface (HCI)
Class
Thursday : Advanced Instructional Design
Class
Next Tuesday : public hearing on my school's
closure
Wednesday : Final presentation for HCI
Thursday : Final presentation for Master's
Capstone Project
And in between all that : Teach, fix computers
and prepare for all of the above. Yea!
Oh, and did I mention I have to go out
and buy some nice pants 'cause jeans aren't nice enough to address the board?
(The principal told me that I had to wear a tie - and then started laughing
because she knew that would never happen!)