Staffing News!

*One note - if you are not interested in the "whole magilla" the big news is in the second paragraph. I documented for documentation sake.
It's spring. For a relatively new teacher that always means the "staffing stress" comes on. Every spring public schools look at what children will be attending school for the following year and how many teachers will be needed to teach said children, taking into account (of course) budget issues. I have now taught school for 5 years. My first year of teaching I taught an all day, every day, Kindergarten class in the Minneapolis School District. That was the 3rd year of a 3 year budget cut plan in which that district had to reduce their budget by 90 million dollars! My little school closed at the end of that year so I needed to move on. Knowing that the district had teachers who had taught for more than 10 years in that district who did not have positions for the following year I did my job searching primarily in other districts. I was lucky, I was hired in the Anoka-Hennepin district for the following year but the position was a split. I worked half time at Madison Elementary and half time at Morris Bye Elementary. At the end of the year when the "staffing stress" came up I was dropped from both positions because I had been working on a "provisional" license. I was still finishing the schooling required for the EBD certification. Madison hired me back but Morris Bye found someone who was not on a provisional license. The next year I worked at Madison and Evergreen. Evergreen's numbers dropped at the end of the year so my position at Evergreen was eliminated which meant that both positions were gone because they were offered as a package. Madison hired me back the next year and Riverview picked up the other half time piece. THEN (joy of joys) Madison and Riverview both had a position for me for this year. This has been the first year since I got my teaching license that I haven't been job hunting from March to August. I have completely enjoyed repeating a year in the same two schools, especially since in the Anoka-Hennepin district being offered a contract for a 4th year of teaching gives me tenure. That means that even if there aren't enough special needs kids at one of my schools to warrant my position the district is reqired to find me a placement (which I have to accept or go job hunting again). BUT it means job security.

Here's the news. For the past 4 years I have worked at one school in the morning and then driven to another school for the afternoon. I've had to juggle 2 sets of staff and 2 caseloads. My caseload at each place is smaller, but it can easily become more like 2 full time jobs if I am not really careful. Yesterday, the principal at Madison (remember, my old stand by that has always hired me back) came into my room and started talking about staffing for next year. I thought "Oh boy, here it comes" What she was trying to tell me was that the numbers of EBD kids at Madison has increased this year enough to warrant a full time position at Madison for next year and would I like to take it? Woo Hoo Just think of it. No hauling myself out of the building in the middle of kid crises, no juggling 2 separate conference schedules. I'll know the kids on my caseload before summer break so I can begin next year with a plan!!! Parents will be able to find me when they need to discuss something. This may sound like a possible negative but believe me it is not. When a parent tries to get ahold of a case manager and that case manager seems unavailable the problem escalates exponentially out of sheer frustration. Okay, there will be a couple of things I'll miss. First, the sped teacher at Riverview (there is only one besides myself) is wonderful and really great to work with. I'll miss her a lot. Second, I'll have to turn in this nifty laptop computer that all "transient" teachers get. Oh poop. Ah well, I'm sure I'll cope. Hee Hee. One school, one position! Hooray hooray.