Job Joys... Not

So today I had my interview with the principal to see if I am among the 50% of the staff who will stay at my school next year. A turn around school is one where the test scores have been low for so long that drastic changes needed to be made. So if the principal has been there more than three full years they are out and the new principal has to interview everyone who wants to stay (teachers, administrators and support staff) and then they can keep no more than 50% of the current staff. Our principal had not made three full years so she can stay but you could not pay me enough money to be in her shoes right now. There were three high schools that fell into that category in the valley.

I think I did pretty well but I'm not sure it matters at all. Our district is going to be $400 million short for next year and even if the deficit is much smaller than what is projected then lots of teachers are going to lose their jobs. That has already happened to one of my friends who got surplussed at her school because they lost some teaching positions. And to make it even worse for her, she is expecting another child.

Now our district happens to have one of those really cool contracts where it's LIFO. That means 'last in, first out', AKA it's all by seniority. So I busted my a$$ to get off probationary status last year and I did well on my observations and review this year and it doesn't mean spit. This is one of the reasons why public education sucks in my state. Once you get seniority all you have to do is to get decent reviews and then bump teachers who have less seniority than you when times get tough. So there are two dates I have to worry about. The first is next week when I find out if I'll be 'staying' at my school and the second in is May when I find out if I got bumped.

This really sucks...

Update #1: I will be looking for a new position next year. I was informed that I would not be coming back to my HS next fall. Now what the hell do I do?