What a week!

How quickly things change...

On Monday morning I was still jobless, but by the afternoon I had received two phone calls requesting interviews from two of those swanky schools I applied for.

On Tuesday, I subbed in the morning at Woodbine and got to see "my" third graders. I got LOTS of hugs!! :) In the afternoon, I went to an interview at a school called Crocker-Riverside (2nd best school in the district) and then to another interview at Hubert H. Bancroft (one of the top 10 schools in the district). Whew! It was a long stressful day and I didn't feel so great about either of the interviews. At Crocker they were really intimidating and I felt like my answers were pretty good but they just didn't seem impressed. At Bancroft, I felt like I was in and out the door in 15 minutes. It went by so quick, I figured they already had someone in mind but were going through the motions to give me my interview.

On Wednesday afternoon I noticed a missed call on my cell phone. It was from a secretary at Bancroft. I was thinking, "If I got the job, wouldn't the principal call me?" So I stopped being paranoid and just called....and was promptly offered the job. I, of course, accepted and I start this Monday.

On Thursday, I signed my one year contract. For the first time in forever, I have medical, dental, and vision benefits. Yahoo!!! I will get 1/6 of each paycheck taken out and set aside so that I will get a couple paychecks over next summer. Yahoo, no waiting tables!!! Also, if I croak sometime soon, Michael gets a big ole whopping 7000 bucks!

On Friday, I went and visited the class that will be mine. The teacher that has been teaching this class apparently retired last year but offered to help the principal out and start this class until he could get someone hired. I don't know why it took so long but that person is ME! The kids all seem nice but the room is bare and I am going to have A LOT of work to do in the next couple weeks to get it looking like home. The class is also, quite ironically, a 2nd grade/3rd grade split...so, basically the situation some of my kids at Woodbine got thrown into when I had to leave. I have 18 second graders and 2 third graders. I don't even know where to start on how teach 2 grades!

This school is SOOO much different from what I am used to. For starters, it is in a really nice, safe, quiet little neighborhood. The kids don't have to wear uniforms or "freeze & take a knee" when the recess bell rings. It is like they get to be "real" kids. I am used to prison yard rules because that is the structure that some kids at tough schools need. I am used to kids who only get their two meals a day at school (free breakfast and lunch). I am used to kids who are transient and disturbingly sad or neglected. I am not saying all of the kids I have ever worked with have been like this but I certainly feel like I am going into new waters. I almost wonder too if I'm a little less important to these kids than I would be at a tougher school. Sorry, I know am having a hard time putting into words what I mean. Don't get me wrong though, I am incredibly happy to get to teach and have a job. Also, because my new school is quite a bit farther away from Michael's and we have different start times (8 am at my new school- ouch!), we went shopping this weekend for a new car. Yippee, I haven't had my own car in a long time! I am the proud new owner of a snazzy black Honda CRV. I had no intention whatsoever of getting this size of a vehicle when we decided I needed one, but I saw the 6 cd player, moon/sun roof, and power locks (something we are relentlessly picked on for NOT having in the Corolla) and I was smitten. It is going to be perfect for trips up to Oregon or to Reno since we always seem to go during snow and will be a blast to take camping. Okay, I should stop blabbing and start getting my things together for tomorrow. Will keep you updated on how the first week goes....

Back on the rollercoaster...

All the other wonky jobs posted on Monday. They are all the who-knows-what-the-problem-is jobs. They could be from schools with over-enrollment, under-enrollment and now consolidating, or some other situation I am not even thinking of. I applied for 8 of the jobs. Apparently though, all the teachers that already have contracts and were released from their positions (for whatever reason) after the school year started had first pick of the jobs before they were posted to the district job board. The weird thing that isn't quite making sense to me is that the jobs I applied for are at really good schools. If you check out a website called greatschools.net you will find ratings and demographics for schools based on all kinds of stuff from test scores to how many students qualify for free breakfast and lunch. Most schools I have worked for are 2's or 3's out of 10. The one school I am rumored to be getting an interview with is an 8!! Another one I applied for is a 6. Lastly, a school that posted 2 jobs is a freakin' 10!! I am not holding out any hope for them to call me. I bet their lunch lady is smarter than me! My question is this: Why wouldn't these jobs have been scooped up?

Today was a blur.

The kids were sad. I was sad. Our pinwheel art project came out awesome! I also had time this morning to cut out their pictures and laminate them with their watercolor hand prints that we made last week. It was kind of morbid cutting their heads off of their bodies but the end result looked really good. Dang, I should have taken pictures!!
Anyhoo, today was full of gifts! I received flowers (a couple of students brought me giant flowers from their yards...hmmm, or someone else's) and the staff bought me this beautiful potted plant with pretty pink flowers. A couple 5th graders went to all the different classes with a card for teachers to sign. Many of the teachers thought I was a Veronica, but the messages were all lovely and sincere just the same. I was given a ginormous doughnut this morning by one of the other third grade teachers which I believe helped me maintain a sugar rush fueled sanity for much of the day (this was not the same teacher who gave me chocolate before, but I got to say chocolate always makes things a little better even if only temporarily). One of my (now former) students took some construction paper and had everyone in the class sign it which was super sweet. One girl even gave me a picture of her family and told me she hopes I put it somewhere so that I won't forget about her. This was all after just three weeks, I wonder what it is like at the end of a whole year with students. Maybe everyone is just so sick of each other they can't wait for some space by summertime.
Uggh, so tired and drained! Gonna go take a nap...

"Their eyes gleamed like watermelon seeds..."

Well, it is official. Tomorrow is my last day as teacher in room 11. The principal came into the room after our last recess today to tell the kids and everyone got misty eyed. I even had a couple of boys who started acting like little buttheads to cover up being upset. One girl stewed until the bell rang. As the other kids were leaving, I went to go tell her everything will be okay and she burst into tears and buried her head in my shirt. It took everything I had to not start crying with her. I recieved a gaggle of hugs from other kids and one girl asked me, "Ms.Carbajal, will we ever see each other again?" Even my most bizarre, behaviorally challenged student who is frequently orbiting another planet mentally stood up during the middle of the principal's speech and said, "But why's she gotta leave? She's a good lady. She does a good job here." All I could think was "Wow! Where did that come from?!" The principal let them ask questions when he was done talking and they were, naturally, concerned about where they were going to end up. One of my smart, adorable girls though looked the principal right in the eyes and said, "But she told us she could stay." She was so business like and serious about it and took this tone with the principal like, "You went back on your word to her."

Today wasn't all bad news though because after school Michael and I went to the district office so he could sign his contract for the year. I am super proud of him and happy he gets to teach at this school that he loves so much. It just sucks that while I was waiting for him in the waiting room, everything finally hit me and I finally burst into tears too. Nice congratulations, right? I felt bad but couldn't control it, these kids were just so awesome (especially compared to my last batch).

So tomorrow I am still going to give them their story assessment for this week, but I think we will do an art project in the morning and watch a movie in the afternoon. I bought cookies and juice and we will just hang out I guess until it is time to give our final high-fives as they walk out the door.

Heartbroken.

I found out today that there is a 99.9% chance that I can not keep my job because of our school's low enrollment, especially in third grade. I have 18 students but the other two third grade teachers only have 15 each. So, I will not be officially hired after all, my students will be placed into the other two classes so that they will be at capacity (20 students). The remaining 8 students will be placed in a second grade/third grade combo class with the possibility of bussing a few students to other schools who don't fit into either of these options. The really crappy part is that the principal crunched numbers to try and "buy" my position with extra money regardless of the low enrollment. He was able to rearrange funds enough to afford to keep me but apparently the district was adamant that he release a teacher. Since, I have the least seniority, I'm out! Also, I never officially signed a contract so I have no union rights as far as being surplussed out to another school.
The principal feels terrible and the team member I have been closely working with was nearly in tears today. We are talking about an ex-military, grown man. He brought me a chocolate bar and just said "I know it doesn't change anything but I don't know what else to do."
I will survive, I will get another job, and I will miss these kids terribly since I have already become quite attached to them. The worst part will be tomorrow when I have to tell them...

Psyche!

The principal told me this morning that he was contacted by the district at 5:30 pm on Friday evening. The district is concerned about our school's low enrollment. Depending on what the district decided, I might be out of my job as quickly as I came into it. If the funding isn't there to pay the three of us third grade teachers, they will oust me, send my kids to the other two third grade classes, and then create a third grade/fourth grade split class for whoever is left over. This would suck (no, not very professional, but it is a sucky situation) for so many reasons.

1. The obvious: no job for me.
2. The kids get jostled from what they are already establishing as safe and routine.
3. The person who would probably take the 3/4 split is freshly out of the credential program. I can't imagine trying to learn the ropes of first year teaching would be made any easier by trying to teach two grades at once.
4. I am really digging most of my kids and the staff at this school.
5. I'd be a sub again.
6. I just bought a bunch of stuff for my classroom this weekend and felt like I could finally start settling into this for the year. It was right after we unloaded all my stuff this morning this morning that I found out about my uncertainty.
7. I was really looking forward to having benefits for the first time in 10 years. Yes, I would actually like to see a dentist!

Will keep you posted of course, but for now it is back to limbo land.

Gonna be a Wildcat!!

I was interviewed yesterday by the princiPAL and the rest of the third grade team. The interview was five minutes after a long day of teaching and in a hot, stuffy room the size of my closet. Oh and for some reason I got completely nervous right before, which really sucked because I was fine all day. I was actually pretty impressed with my lack of freaking-out-ness leading up to the interview because I am usually quite the spaz about this kind of stuff. I think I had just hit a stage of being in limbo fatigue. Not knowing if you are staying or leaving for two weeks will do that to you I guess. To be perfectly honest, by the time the interview rolled around, I was sort of not even sure I wanted to teach. Needless to say I pretty much bombed the interview rocking this kind of mindset. Miraculously, I was still offered the job this morning. I was told I sold myself terribly though and that if my grade level team members hadn't defended me and the princiPAL hadn't come into observe me teach that I probably wouldn't have gotten the job. Apparently, there are all these secret rules about being interviewed that I wasn't aware of. I won't get into that except to say that this was my first interview and I didn't know any better.
So for the next 174 teaching days I will be a Woodbine Wildcat and teacher to some very cool, interesting, challenging, funny, perplexing, adorable, quirky, confusing, frustrating, amazing, hilarious, bizarre, creative kids.