One week before school started this year I was placed on the SLIP team at school (School Learning Improvement Plan). The team is charged with reviewing the learning goals made by the school community last year, reviewing progress toward those goals, and creating new goals to present to the staff at school so that they can make their plans for how they will meet those goals. I felt a little clueless but the school needed to have a special education representative on the team. ANYwhoo, in the process I discovered that the lead special ed teacher at our school, the person who had been the sped representative on the SLIP, had accepted another position in the district and would be leaving Madison. Two days later the principal at Madison called me and offered me her position. I stressed out for about 24 hours and then accepted the position. What if means for me is that I will be teaching Kindergarten Centerbase class on Monday, Wednesday, and every other Friday and will be the "Elementary Contact" teacher for the special ed team at Madison on the other days. I was pretty intimidated. It is a very long story, but the last time I had a job that put me in a position of authority it turned out poorly for me so I was REALLY nervous. On the other hand, I reasoned that this is a staff I have worked successfully with for the past 4 years and it would be a great opportunity to develop some new skills. It is also something that will look good on my resume. Since Anoka-Hennepin School District will be closing 7 elementary schools and 1 middle school at the end of this year there is a high likelihood that I will be looking for a job.
So far, I think I made a great choice. I'm really loving my job this year. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed teaching kindergarten. I have 4 students with significant needs but we have a lot of fun. They have made progress already! In the other position, I seem to be doing scheduling and paperwork all day and it is kind of fun. I'm still covering the caseload for the EBD teacher because we haven't filled that position yet but the up side of that is that these kids are familiar to me. Life is good.
2 comments:
Congratulations! You'll do great.
That's great that you decided to stretch yourself and take the position. I think intentionally putting yourself outside of your comfort zone is one of the hardest things to do. Glad to hear it's been good so far.
Post a Comment