This is kinda a weird one, but it wasn't really fun or anything but it had to be done. I have been working at Albion Middle School for 15 years. Canyons District is realigning and all the 9th grade kids are going to go to high schools now and not middle schools. I teach mostly 9th grade so had to make a choice if I wanted to stay and teach younger kids or move to a high school. It was a hard decision because Albion has been my home, and I can't even entertain the thoughts in my mind of not working with those people who have grown to be my family there because I am even tearing up writing this. However I teach Geography and that is a 9th grade class and if I stayed in middle school it would really limit my options and choices in my career. Whereas if I went to a high school I could still teach geography but all the high school history classes as well. So I knew it was right to go to a high school. So the process was to apply to the high schools that you were interested in. I applied initially to the new high school as the dept. head for social studies. It was considered a critical position after all the coaches were hired. I didn't get the job. It was offered to a lady with 4 years teaching experience and cheerleading or dance experience to be the advisor for that. Just a note....I have been dept. head for probably 10 years at Albion but yes my cheerleading probably has suffered development. I am sure she is a fantastic teacher and person, but I thought at that point, if that is what they are looking for then maybe that is not the school I want to be in. So then the high school teaching positions opened up and I applied for the new high school, the HS where most of our students go to, and Hillcrest. My first interview was with the new high school and it was a fine interview but just whatever, the second interview was with Hillcrest and the ss dept. head, who was interviewing me, worked at Albion before and his dad also had worked there when I first started. The conversation was so easy and we joked back and forth and were on the same page academically. I knew that it went well. Then I have one more interview in which I thought went well and actually thought about maybe having that one as my first choice. So as we left the district offices after the day of interviewing we had to rate which school we would prefer first, second, third, etc...My goal since day one had been the new high school, but I knew that the Hillcrest interview had gone so much better and if any school was to offer me a job it would be them. But it is hard to decide in 2 minutes as you are filling out the paper, so I tied the two and put the last interviewer as third. Then the next week got a call from Hillcrest. I knew it was the right choice for me, so I accepted. I am so excited to go there. I think it is going to really fit my personality well. So I start next school year. I don't know what I will be teaching because they did hire 3 geography teachers, but I will be happy with teaching whatever they need me to. In telling this story I do have to say, that I hated the process. Going through the formalities of applying to jobs from the employer you have been with for 15 years really sucked. Because of this as well as some other things I had to deal with from the district this year I had felt really insecure and vulnerable about myself and questioned if I am a good teacher or if this is what I want to continue doing. Honestly those are feelings I haven't really dealt with a lot in my life. It was really really really stressful. When Hillcrest offered me the job a huge relief came over me that I didn't have to think or worry about my situation anymore. And the other issue I am dealing with from the district wasn't so significant because I wasn't looking for a job from them anymore so didn't have to go through the hoops that I felt like I needed to before I was hired. Now everyone wants to know what 'situation' I am referring to. In short my AP scores were the lowest in the district and I was reprimanded for it. But last year I physically was at a whole other school than my colleagues at Albion, while our school was being redone. My students had to walk 10 minutes to get to my class. Most days I had 30 minutes to teach the kids what they needed to know for the AP test. Adding that up on a daily, weekly, and yearly scale it was 2/3 of the time the other teachers had to teach the same subject in the other middle school. My scores were still above national average and I had close to 70 students where some schools had less than 25 students. Had I known I wouldn't have taught it last year, but I didn't know and just hoped for the best. I am hoping that my 85 students this year, yes I picked up a whole other class of it so it couldn't have been so bad, clean up on the test and then I better have some kind of floral arrangement delivered to my house the first week of July as the test scores come out staying Ms. Roberts, you are great and the district appreciates you putting in so much time and effort on behalf of the APHG students at Albion. So sorry this post was so long but I did get a job for next year so check. (And I will let you know how my students do on the test).
No comments:
Post a Comment