I Won't Complain

I spent much of the day fielding calls and text messages from concerned friends and coworkers. For some months now there have been many news reports about the financial crisis our school district is in. Along with those reports came the words no one wants to hear, "budget cuts."

Needless to say, myself and many teachers around the district have been concerned. None of us knew what would happen and like so many others, I prayed that the powers that be within the district would most certainly figure this issue out without having to let any teachers go. Last week was the week. The time had come and there was no turning back.

My call to the office came on Wednesday, April 7th right after bus duty. When the Assistant Principal came on the walkie and said she needed to see me in the office I already knew. Nothing good was going to come from this meeting. Fifteen years in the district and ten at my current school wasn't enough to save me.

Walking out of the office, my first call was to my husband. We'd been through this once before almost three years ago when he was moved from a twelve month employee to a ten month employee. I knew he'd understand my anger, frustration and overall sadness. After hearing me out, he was just as emotional as I was. "Ro, you are an amazing teacher," he said. "It will be their loss."

While the process for moving schools and being forced to take another position in what our district calls a "pool" is utterly and complete frustrating, we are grateful that we at least have an option. Unfortunately, with so many position cuts and teachers being displaced we have come to learn that there are more teachers looking for positions than what is available.

My husband let me sulk for about two days and then he said, "no more!" We looked over our budget, hatched a plan and updated my resume. For the past few months I had been bugging him for two things. The first is a new puppy. The second was a bike. Well, he gave me the green light to start searching for a new puppy and bought me a new bike.

From my view, getting potentially fired, laid off, displaced or whatever my district is calling it had a few perks!