A Weight off My Shoulders

Our school district is building a new elementary school. Currently we have three, one is for K - 1 and the other two are 2 - 5. Since there is mandated all day kindergarten starting next year, it will all be housed in one building, the current K - 1 (Did you follow that?) The rest of the buildings, including the new one will be 1 - 5.

Now, since the students are being split up, my school will not have as many students as they do now, so the amount of teachers we have now will not be needed. Here is where the fun part begins. Teachers will need to be transferred to different buildings. They are taking volunteers to the new school first, then they are going up the seniority list, taking the least senior and working their way up and simply moving them if there are not enough volunteers.

I LOVE who I work with. I have worked with the same group of teachers in 4th grade for five years now and they are amazing. We get along well and have fun together, including going bowling and having great holiday parties! I didn't want to move. However, I am the second least senior teacher in the grade. Next year they will only need four 4th grade teachers in my school, we now have 8. There was no way I would be teaching 4th grade in my school next year. I had to ask myself, would I risk being in any grade just to stay at my school, or was 4th grade more important.

I had to weigh all my options. After thinking about it (and stressing) I decided to volunteer to go to the new school so I could teach 4th grade. To me, it was simple. If I had to teach a new grade, I would spend all kinds of time learning the new curriculum and being trained. Not something I want to spend my time doing when I have a newborn baby waiting for me at the end of the day. I made up my mind to voluntary transfer back in November. One teacher who teaches with me said he would go to. He wouldn't have had to go, he has seniority, but I am so thankful that he decided to take the plunge with me.

Since I decided and turned in my paperwork I have been stressing. If more then the allotted teachers applied for a grade, there would need to be interviews. We were to find out next week if we needed to interview and when. My stress level heightened this morning when I found out people had already heard about interviews for second grade! I knew my e-mail was coming.

By the grace of God I received an email from personnel at 8:49 this morning telling me that my transfer had been accepted and I would be teaching 4th grade at the new building. No need to interview! Words cannot explain how relieved I am. Moving will be somewhat of a pain, but I know that at the end of the day next year I can come home and not worry about added training. Not to mention the new school is going to be amazing with all kinds of technology!

I am so thankful.