Surplus

I had to wait a couple of days before I could muster enough strength to write about this little event that occurred on Friday......

I was surplus-ed. I got an email late on Thursday saying all teachers in Science, Social Studies, English, & Math were to meet in the cafeteria immediately after school on Friday. Well, as hectic as my days are, I really didn't even read the email. I knew it was about surplus but I figured since I was already told I would be teaching the ESO position next year, it didn't really apply to me. So, I moved the email over to my outlook calendar to remind myself of the meeting and forgot all about it.

Friday just before lunch, I get an email from my principal telling me not to panic about the surplus and to come find either him or my Assistant Principal of Registration (APR) on my lunch break. Ok..... now a little panic started to rise....

I went down to the office at lunch and both of them were busy in meetings. I let their assistant's know I stopped by, and said I would meet them at the meeting. No big deal right?

I was double booked for Friday after school. I had the parent meeting scheduled for student with 295 absences, and the surplus meeting in the cafeteria. I sent an email out to all of student 295's teachers and cc'd the Dean of Students and the Head of Security to see if they could pick him up during his 8th period class so we could make sure he made it to the meeting. I got no response from anyone. The counselor did email me back saying she would call and confirm with the mother before lunch.

Student 295 & mom were both no-shows. No answer on either phone number mom gave me 2 weeks ago either. Surprise, surprise.

I made my way over to the cafeteria for the meeting and the APR immediately pulled me aside and told me I was being surplussed, but not to worry - I still can apply to teach the ESO position.

Barf

I had no idea I was going to have to apply to teach the ESO position. Not that I doubt my credibility for the position, but just to have to go through all the pain and suffering of "applying" for another job just kills me!

I take my seat and the meeting starts. I learn that yes, I am going to be surplus-ed but not because I am not meeting the demands of being a teacher, but because I am the teacher in my department with the lowest number of years teaching in the district and the lowest number of years teaching period. This sucks. It sucks really bad.

There are some perks to being surplussed. If there are any Science jobs open within my district, they have to hire me to teach in those positions before they can hire any other outside teacher. This means if the position at my school is not available, they have to give me a teaching job in science at another school before they can hire outside the district. This would be great if I was even remotely interested in teaching at any other school in our district. I am not. I currently teach at the school in our district that is the closest to my house. This is 32.3 miles from my house. I have a 54 minute commute to work every morning and a 67 minute commute back every night. To teach at another school would be absolute murder on my commute! I don't want to drive any further!

Now there is hope for me. I can apply to teach the ESO position (which is the night school position). The APR told me the position is "pretty much yours" once I apply. The only problem I have with that is that our school is not the only school in the district that is going through surplussing or RIF's. (I have no idea what the RIF stands for but basically that means you are only going to be offered a teaching job if the schools can prove they need you to fulfill this job after they have official enrollment numbers in for the fall).

Long story short - even if my school decides to give me the position teaching ESO, if there is another Science teacher in our district with more years of teaching experience than I have, or more years in the district than I have (which will be very likely since I am 1 year of teaching experience and 1 year in the district), then they can get the ESO position at my school. Basically, I will not know anything for sure - meaning have a hard piece of paper in front of me with a contract on it until very late in the summer. This also means if I get the short end of the stick, I will not have the time to find another job before the school year starts.

I bawled the whole drive home! I don't know why because in all likely hood, I will be just fine. I think the crying is just more sadness. I am very sad and frustrated with the system. It isn't working. I have students in the 9th grade who are reading at the 3rd grade reading level. Students are coming up to me and telling me that they really don't have to pass the AIMS test and they will graduate school no matter what because they have an IEP (Individualized Education Plan - meaning they are designated as "Special Education"). So why are they going to even study at all?

Very gloomy day.