Dear Parents

Typically, when I say "Dear Parents" it's followed by some complaint in an exasperated tone. Dear Parents: Stop sending your kids to school with a fever.  Dear Parents: It is not the first day of school. Learn the car line procedures. Dear Parents: Scream 2 is not appropriate for your 1st grader.

Today, my "Dear Parents" is a question.  It's something that as a cat mom I don't comprehend.

Dear Parents: How do you watch your kids struggle with something that you can't help them with?  How do you do it?  Knowing that you've done all you can, but obstacles to helping them stand in your way, how do you let go and hope for the best? 

I have two students with several mental health needs. Because I can't get into specifics, I'll just say that there are many barriers preventing me from doing everything I can to help them.  It's so damn frustrating!  I know it's not my job to fix them, but at the same time, it's my job to fix them. 

I just want to scream and yell at these obstacles, "Do this!" and "Stop doing that!" Since I am unable to do this, I do what I can to make it better.  It's never enough.  I can't do enough to change things and make it better.  It's driving me insane.

My classroom checks off all of the "required elements" of a behavior support classroom (or any classroom, TBH).  I've done all the things teachers are told to do by those super-educators.  I have positive relationships with the kids, token economies, praise, structure, routines, and communication.  The problem is, my room has become an emotional support classroom.

I spent a few hours last night reading articles about how to successfully maintain a trauma-informed classroom.  I need to know how to help my kids heal, and manage their difficulties.  I need to step up for them.  I HIGHLY recommend taking a look at Edutopia.com under the Mental Health topic section.  The website is run by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, so it gets extra nerd points from me. 

Today I went in with a new attitude, ready to make things better.  Ready to fix things.  First up-rearrange the room and make a few new areas.  We have a new student starting on Monday, so I wanted to get all this new stuff going prior to his arrival.  I OBSESSED over this for a better part of the day.  I drove my poor para crazy because I wouldn't let it go.  She just shook her head and waited for me to come to my senses.  Like that's gonna happen. 

Desks were here...now they're here.  That table?  I don't like it where it is, but I don't know where to put it.  Robbed a desk from Peter to pay Paul.  Put things in bins, moved boxes, made new signs, and threw stuff away.  Then I paced the room because something's still not right, and I just can't put my finger on it.  It's not going to be right. 

I can't fix it.  I'm trying to fix or change the environment because I can't fix the problems.  I'm putting band-aids on stuff when surgery is needed.  There are things impacting our classroom that are out of my control, and I can't stand it.  

So it's goes back to my question: Knowing that you've done everything that can be done, but it's still not enough, how do you watch your kids struggle with something that you can't help them with?  

God bless you, parents, for your sleepless nights, grey hairs, wrinkles, tears, ulcers, mild alcoholism, and stress headaches.  To me, you are heroes.  

And now for the rest of the story

Wow. What a week.  I'm so behind that I even missed my weekly post.  The one thing I swore I wasn't going to do.  I should know better.  

I has been crazy busy with the new job and I am so so so tired.  I tried to use an old login that I haven't used in 4 years to access my online bank this morning.  Gonna be a long day.  OK...where was I...

Monday morning I walking into my new school (after standing outside of it for 5-6 minutes because I didn't have a badge to let myself in and no one was in the office yet) and headed to the cafeteria.  The first person I met was the woman who had this job before me. Excellent, I could gain valuable information.  Not so much. 😑

All I heard were the negatives.  The bad news.  The awful stories.  Awesome.  As a teacher new to the county, state, school, classroom, it's always good to be encouraged like this on your first day.  Good Lord.

Turns out, the reason last year was so horrible was not only due to the students.  This teacher was also a great contributor to the chaos.  I believe the term used was "hot mess."

I missed the new teacher training as I was hired after the fact.  Speaking of that, the principal announced on the very first day (to the entire staff) that after he interviewed me, he cancelled all his other interviews for this position.  No pressure.   

I never signed papers or became official until the second day.  Even that was iffy as they didn't like my certification from MD.  I'm now on an emergency cert.  Because after 20 years, I need to prove I'm a teacher.  Speaking of that, I need to PROVE that I've taught elsewhere. 

HR is starting my salary on Step 1 of the pay scale.  That's HALF of what I would have been making had I stayed where I was.  I need to provide documentation from MA and MD that I actually taught there. THEN, I need to provide transcripts from all colleges I attended so that I can get my +15 or +30 (I don't remember how many now.).  After they get all that, then they will bump up my salary.  That's insane.  When I started at my last district, they asked how long I'd taught and started me on the scale accordingly.  

I also needed at TB test and a background check/fingerprinting.  Both cost money.  And time.  I had to drive over an hour one way after work one evening to get the background check done.  I passed.  It's good to know people. ;) 

I'm learning everything as I go.  It's like I woke up in another country with no prior knowledge.  I really have to say, the people I work with are wonderful.  They have been so helpful and kind and accommodating.  Anything I need, someone will attempt to get it for me.  I still don't have everything I need.  I don't get planning or lunch (yet).  I still don't know everything I need to know to be successful with these kids. I'm missing curriculum. I have to give some kind of testing to kids that don't want to learn.

The kids. I have 9 students.  Three are ELL; three have BIPs; one is on the spectrum; one is truant (missed 2 of three days so far), and one is here for reasons I can't figure out.  I like most of them. Two are going to be the death of me. 

Let's Twist This

🍍 So, funny story.  As you've read, all summer I searched for jobs.  I believe I sent out 25 applications and had 11 interviews. It was down to the wire and I thought my chances of ever getting a teaching job for this year were gone. Schools were starting with new teacher meetings and professional developments.  I thought for sure I'd be back in the real, non-teaching world.  As a last ditch effort, I applied for 5 jobs on Sunday the 12th.  Let me tell you about one of them.

I had seen a posting for this job for weeks, maybe all summer.  I kept avoiding it because I didn't know the area, or anything about that school district.  I wasn't thrilled with what the school looked like from its pictures.  It was further away than I wanted to drive.  I just wasn't feeling it, you know?  I kept clicking past this job. 

To be fair, I consistently clicked past others, as well.  Particularly, any job that said I'd be working with kids that had behavior issues.  That was a no.  I'd done that before and had no interest in going back. 

Even on that Sunday, I reluctantly applied for that one position I'd so easy passed over.  In fact, it was the very last one I sent in.  Application #25.  

At 9:00 on Tuesday morning the 14th, I got a call for an interview.  Yay!   Maybe all hope wasn't lost!  Guys...it was THAT SCHOOL.  The principal was very interested in my resume.  Could I come in the next day, the 15th?  Since no one else had been calling in the last two weeks, why the hell not.

And then I remembered my shaved, purple, NTW hair.  And my yellow fingernail polish.  Crap.

While waiting my turn that Wednesday afternoon, a gentleman was escorted out after his interview.  I heard the principal tell this man that he had one more interview that day (me), and a few more on Friday.  Applicants would know by Friday afternoon; teachers start Monday the 20th.  They were cutting it close.  

I went in and had what I thought was a really good interview with the principal, AP, and ED.  It was more like a conversation, actually.  Very relaxed.  We joked.  No one mentioned the hair.  He told me he'd call me (don't they always).  I sent the obligatory thank you email that evening and prepared to spend the rest of my summer hunting for a job outside of teaching.  BTW, It would be in a self-contained classroom (yay!!!!) with behavior kids......sigh. 

Thursday the 16th at 3:00 I got a phone call from the district offering me the job.  WHAAAAAT?!  It was emphasized that they really wanted me to accept.  According to the HR rep, they were quite taken with me. Huh. I thought they had more interviews on Friday.  Today's Thursday.  Wait-the guy before me was probably interviewing for a GenEd position.  I was a bit confused, but more excited that finally somebody wanted me.

So the job I'd avoided like the plague, working with kids I didn't want to work with, in an area I know nothing about, in an old, seriously needs to be modernized school ended up being the job I was offered.  And the job I accepted.  God is good.  

There's so much more to this story, but I'm beyond tired and have a shitload of stuff to process.  See you next week. 
  

What Can You Do With a General When He Stops Being a General?

And so this is the question I am asking myself.  This blogger finds herself in a position of everything is possible and nothing is possible, simultaneously. It's a scary, awkward, degrading, awful, depressing, anxious, unnerving, (have I forgotten anything?) feeling. To put it succinctly, it sucks.

I was a teacher for 20 years, more if you count the years I was a teaching assistant.  Seventeen years of that was with the same school district. Last week I turned in my resignation.  It's been some time coming.  It's not how I would have done it, but it's done.

Special Ed is becoming rough, yo.  It's no longer help the children where they are and prepare them for the life ahead with daily living and job skills.  Now it's catch them up to their grade-level peers and let's hope their families pick up the rest. It's no longer teach them where they're at. It's now, force them to fit in these spaces and make our scores look good.  I don't know.  Maybe that's not everywhere.  Maybe just where I was.  But it wasn't always like that, which is what upsets me the most.  The district I left was more concerned about what education looks like rather than what education is.  

I've applied to many job openings still in the field of special education.  I've been interviewed for all but two so far.  I've even had a second interview for two.  Sadly, no offer has been made.  My thoughts: 1-I'm expensive to hire. Twenty years of experience brings a high salary; 2-When they call the school for reference, I'm not spoken of well; 3-I really do suck as a teacher. 

Happily, I do have a phone interview soon for a really cool charter school.  It's arts-based.  Singing and dancing?  Count me in!  

So while friends are going on vacation, taking trips down the shore, Hershey Park, Mexico, etc., I've been scouring the Internet and interviewing for jobs.  I've been working out (having not lost a pound), keeping a fancy journal, knitting, reading, dabbling in BW photography, and starting this blog.  We don't know what we're going to need as far as money in the future so we stick close to home. 

Back-to-school sales have taken on a whole new feeling. 

So that's it. First blog post. Just some stuff about my life at this moment.