Other side of things

Although being parents is a HUGE part of our lives now, there's still a lot more going on besides the baby. It's so easy to be consumed by being parents that it's also important to acknowledge and celebrate the other things going on in our lives.  This post is just to fill you in about what else we're up to...

Me:
Still working like crazy.  As much as I wish I could've taken a year off to spend with the baby, it's absolutely necessary for me to work.  This year, I'm still at the same school and teaching 3rd and 4th grade SDC.  We found out at that our school is now in our first year of PI, so administration is really buckling down hard on all the teachers to improve their teaching in order to help the kids do better on their state tests.  Unfortunately, because of the area that I work in, with the low socioeconomic status and number of English learners, it's characteristic of the students to perform lower than students in more affluent areas where parents provide more support.  What bothers me is that even though I teach Special Ed, I (along with the other SpEd teachers) are feeling so much more pressure to get our students' scores on the state tests to increase.  There are so many things wrong about this...but I don't really want to get into that, because it only gives me a headache to think about it.  Anyways, I'm busy trying to teach my 13 students the same standards that the general ed teachers are doing, and as you can imagine, much of it is going over their heads.  Though, I think it's frustrating me more so than it's frustrating them, and it really is making me stop and think.  Is this what I really want to do?  Lately, I'm coming to the conclusion that it isn't.  I want something else.  I was specially trained and got my credentials to work with students who have severe disabilities.  In the past month, I've realized that while I do like what I do and the students I work with, it's just simply not the population I want.  It came to me while I was talking to the school counselor that I just met.  I was introducing myself and telling him about what I did before I came to this school, and he said "wow, with that skill set, you're working here?"  That's when the lightbulb went off, and made me realize that I need to start looking elsewhere.  So now, I'm doing my best to chug along at work, and do what they're asking me to do with the students.  But on side, I'm starting to look around and see what my options are.

Michael:
Although he's still aching to have a classroom of his own instead of taking on substitute positions, things are starting to look more promising for him.  Last year, he worked in my school district as an Impact teacher, which is basically an intervention teacher who works with small groups from different classrooms to work on skills that they are having difficulty with.  The liked working with the kids, but his experience was really tainted because of the way the classroom teachers, themselves, were to work with.  He was very frustrated, to say the least.  Coming into the new school year, he was hoping to secure another year as an Impact teacher (and hopefully at a different school)....but as luck would have it, he found out that there was a position open in Irvine Unified at the school where his former principal (who LOVES him) now works.  Unfortunately, he only came in second to getting the position...but only because the staff there who have a big say in the selection process did not know him.  He was told, though, that he could be put on the sub list at Irvine, which is hard to get on to.  Soon after that, he was offered a long term position teaching 2nd grade which is the perfect chance for him to get his foot in the door and give the teachers there a chance to get to know him so that he'll have a better chance at getting hired when the next opportunity comes.  That's where he's at now, and he's loving it (but not so much loving the drive there and back through the traffic every day).  The students are sweet and he's finding that the parents aren't as bad or as interrogative as he was fearing they would be.  Best of all, he gets to work again with the principal who initially hired him when he first started teaching, and who he really loves working with.  We're keeping our fingers, toes, eyes, and everything else crossed that he can get another long term position there after this one ends, and that a position opens up soon. :)