All in a year's work...

...alright, my first year of teaching isn't even over with and I'm already amazed at the crap I've had to deal with: from paperwork to Human Rejects...I mean Resources, political gesturing from administrators to blanketed "grounds for termination" threats, I can only imagine what is still left to be experienced in teaching. Though this may be a heightened experience because I'm in DC (no I'm not using any performance-enhancing drugs), I see the latest drama as just another surreal feeling.

What is it you ask?: oh, yeah....they're talking about merging our school into another school, effectively closing down our building (the real estate will probably be worth millions...or a billion dollar rich-man-shopping-complex...or a sweet place for somebody's office). Let me start by saying: I will still have a job no matter what. Same teachers, same students, different overcrowded building...this is only a possibility. The consolidation reflects an attempted change in the past poor spending habits in the district. So, our new Chancellor (appointed by the mayor) has plans to shake up a lot of things. Long story short (which I am incapable of pulling off): the Chancellor is a political-economic head of a community-family-child based organization, and it will be hard for her to be liked at her job (sorry, no sympathy from me...I'm a middle school math teacher!)

Why did I tell you all this again? Oh yeah, because all you jerks in the northwest keep getting snow days, and late starts while my "white n nerdy" self was trying to look inconspicuous at a meeting with the Chancellor herself! She showed up to hear community input about pro/cons of consolidating another school over our school. Essentially its a purely business/numbers decision, and teachers-parents-community members tried to pull on some heartstrings. Now I'm just starting to sound negative, but its a little of my honesty. I guess I'm making this sound like a really bad thing everyone should worry about, and its not! Actually, I just wanted a snow day or a nap rather than this big showy meeting during my lunch hour! I guess I'll have to settle with tomorrow being Friday...not the same.

(note: I didn't link to any stories about the DCPS school consolidation plan because the un-biased ones are all on washingtonpost.com but you have to have an account. So feel free to search on your own, or just ask me) And here's another link to go along with my unintentional theme.