Saturday, May 17, 2008

First Saturday

This is the first Saturday in a long line of Saturdays that I actually have no obligations to anyone else but my family. And even then, my obligation there is to hang out with them. I think I can handle it.

The past 16 Saturdays, I got out of bed close to my normal time (6:00am--woo hoo! I slept in!), made coffee, waited for it to kick in, and then I wrote. And read. And did my homework. I did this for a graduate-level class that I was forced to take.

The school district had been avoiding their legal obligations to certain students, and waited until the courts said, "DO IT NOW OR ELSE," and they scrambled and came up with a plan. It involved partnering with a local university, and not letting any of us teacher know about it until it happened.

In fact, I got my registration packet in the mail before I knew I was taking a class. "Welcome!" it said. "We are so excited you are enrolled in this program!"

Um....I didn't enroll in jack.

The next day, I got the email from the school district, explaining that I had to take these classes, or I would have to switch to a school that didn't serve this special population of students. Since our school district has the majority of its schools in that category, it was clear that I would have to take the class.

I was not alone. More than a handful of the teachers in my building were taking the classes. They started last September, and just ended for me last week. Trying to be positive about it, I thought, "I can use these classes as recertification credit when I need to renew my teaching license. And I didn't have to pay for them, either." Since I just recertified in July, I thought that was a good thing.

Well, as luck/fate/plain ol' circumstances would have it, I transferred schools for next year. To a school where I won't have to take those classes. And I won't have to be the head of the department. And I won't have to do everything myself (my department was understaffed this year for the first semester--I was doing the job of 2.5 people by myself).

I'll miss seeing my friends' faces every day, but being healthy and a bit more underwhelmed with work is going to be a good thing. I'm really not that sad about leaving. I am sad that this year was so terrible. It almost broke me. But I've got some energy again.

Change can be good.

1 comment:

  1. Wow. As they say on the internets, that is teh suck. Glad you made it through!

    And here's to new friends and easier days.

    ReplyDelete