It is really starting to look like I am actually going to have a job for the new school year. I have been waiting all summer to find out, but I think it might really happen.
Here's what's been going on: When I signed my contract last January, it was to work only for the rest of the school year as the opening I was filling was for all intents and purposes a leave position. But then I got to my school and liked it...and even loved some things (and people) there and so that got confusing, because I wanted to stay. But the person who had left was coming back and wanted her job and so there was just not the possibility for me to come back.
Then the option became available for me to work in the middle school division of our school, because the person doing that job became the Assistant Principal. That person, over the course of the spring semester, had also become someone with whom I was--shall we say--spending time socially? And so going to work at the middle school seemed complicated and potentially challenging too. Also, the MS position was only half-time and so to make up the other part of my contract I would have had to teach. middle. school. Like whoa. Some people are great at it but I am not one of them. Actually I've never done it, so I'm not sure how great I might actually be. But I do not want to try it, and so the point was kind of moot anyway.
All this meant that while I am eligible to fill a position in the district, doing the same job as last year, for 2009-2010 I did not have a school at which to work. There was no school with an opening to which I could go. So I could:
a. apply for other positions within the district, which I didn't because I thought it might actually jeopardize the possibility of getting the job I really wanted
b. apply to other schools and districts, which I did
c. be anxious and frustrated and even cry sometimes which I certainly did too.
Finally it seemed like the waiting might be over, and I went last Monday and had a great interview at a well-located school with a convenient schedule that offers a whole range of community-based services. Seemed great. I liked the (new) principal and the new principal liked me. Afterwards I left and went directly to the district office to tell my director's secretary that I wanted to work there for the fall. And then, I didn't...hear...back. Again. For three days.
Until Thursday when the secretary emailed apologetically, saying they've been so busy and she hadn't been able to speak with the director but now she had and the placement looked good and if I still wanted it (still wanted it?!?!?!?) she'd put through the paperwork.
My email back to her read simply: DO! IT!!! :) and I realized with great relief I was about to have my very own job again, one that I get to keep if I want to, for the first time since October 2008. There was some chocolate-eating and a few joyous phone calls and text messages and then we even went out for drinks that night at Orson (sidepoint: It was such the lesbian scene. The Lex or El Rio or Wild Side West or Cockblock or anywhere else of that genre was never part of my club circuit...so I had never been out like this WHOA) to celebrate. Yaaaaay all my patience and suit-wearing and smart responses to questions about school reform and instructional equity had paid off. Done :)
Until...yesterday morning, when my director emailed me herself (a completely rarity) asking if I would consider a placement at another school. For whatever reason there is a total eleventh-hour opening at a high-profile school that participates in a district-wide professional learning community with other schools and an educational non-profit. They too are getting a new principal and need a strong person with my professional profile to fill their opening. So on Monday I am going to meet with their old principal, now an Assistant Superintendent in the district, and my director to see if this site might be a match for me instead.
I was really starting to get into the idea of going to the school I visited last Monday, though. They have never had someone who does my job placed at their school, so it seemed like a cool opportunity to kind of write my own story about the work I'd do there. Plus it is right. downtown. which I love. And downstairs from the school is Naan N Curry, and Peet's is across the street. And it is by transit and starts at 8:40, not 7:55 like the school I'm going to visit on Monday. Sigh.
I just want to know what is going to happen. I have been advised again and again to trust, to rest in uncertainty, to avoid attachment to or anxiety about things I can't control. Easier said than done...I will keep you posted.
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