Your first impressions got to be your very best.

Last entry's song title: Sunflowers by Everclear

I am broadcasting to you live today from Panera (Pandora's Box for Amanda) in Apple Valley, MN. Being newly unemployed (for next year, that is) has afforded me the opportunity to use my sick days for appointments where I might only have had to previously leave work 20 minutes early instead of 4 hours. But don't get me started about the things that I feel are wrong with the Minnesota (and probably the rest of the country's) school system.

I say, "don't get me started" probably because I can do that myself. I have a little over 4 years (because Lukin won't wait until he is 6 to go to kindergarten...he's too damn smart) to figure out where Lukin is going to go to school. Chances are, I will have to not work and get my basic education degree so that I can stay at home and teach my child.

This all stems from yesterday and how pissed off I was when I had some stupid OT ask me if I liked my job. The OT herself is not stupid, just the fact that she asked me about my job when I didn't even know I wasn't going to have the opportunity to have it back next year. You see, our district has this stupid policy where all non-tenured (I believe they call it 'probationary status') teachers are non-renewed and therefore are unemployed as of the date of that letter. When all the tenured people get situated for the next year, then those who work in the district who are not tenured, can be offered the jobs that are remaining. They are often odds and ends jobs, which is how I ended up with three schools this year.

So anyway, the school district is shrinking, enrollment is down. Where are the people going? I don't know. I assume, and have had explained to me that the district in general is getting older and there no longer is the need for as much education staff. Well, pardon me if I think that is bullshit. Perhaps the number of students has gone down, but the needs of the students have gone up. I haven't heard of any of the schools in the district INcreasing their speech-language allotment for next year. It's not like the students who need speech are just disappearing. And it is certainly not that LD teachers can do what we do. So how are these students having their needs met? Short answer HAS to be that they aren't.

I know it's not the principal's fault. I know it's not the special ed director's fault. I know that it is the government's fault. How can there be things like, "No Child Left Behind" and then major cuts in Special Education funding? If you cut special ed funding, you are setting certain students up for failure. God forbid they cut programs like phy ed. "But the kids need to learn to exercise. Otherwise we are setting them up for a future of obesity." Possibly. However, if you cut special ed., you are setting them up for a future of welfare, because they don't know how to do things because there was no one to help them.

It makes me wonder. Is our country trying to move back to the state of institutuionalization? It has that aire to me.

My husband thinks that it's odd that teachers are not paid better. These are the people that help to shape the future of our country. We are 'molding the minds'. Granted, home plays a part, but sorry, home can't grant a degree.

So as of right now, I am employed for 15 more days. After that, who knows? All I know is that my husband keeps sending me opening in school districts around us, even the one I currently work for, and I am not interested. I don't even want to work in education anymore. I would rather go to the hospital setting. I could work less hours a week and still make more money a year than I do now. (Granted, I would work year 'round, but still). Or maybe I should go into one of the things I was talking about yesterday. I am sure there are downfalls (like the massive dive in annual salary) to any job but right now, any job has to beat the one I have, or I should say, had.