Thursday, December 4, 2008

NO MORE EVALUATIONS!!!

I have been very blessed in my teaching career so far. I had a job waiting for me two months before I even graduated, which is a HUGE blessing because not too many jobs are offered in January. I spent from January to May of 2008 at Ellis Middle School teaching 6th grade Science. I was hired as a "late hire" which meant that last year counted as a year toward my tenure since I worked over 100 days (by the skim of my teeth). Basically I got a full years worth of credit and only had to work 1/2 of a year. Plus my pay increased this year since my stub showed that I had already worked one full year. Pretty incredible! Well in June Rich and I decided to go to the beach for 9 days on one of the most incredible vacations of my life. While I was away I had gotten an email from the principal at H.B. Williams, which is the elementary school in White House that I completed one of my placements at for my student teaching last year. She just said that she was holding a position for me in first grade and wanted to know if I would be interested. Keep in mind that I was driving to Hendersonville every single day during the whole $4 gas fiasco. I interviewed with her the day after we returned from our vacation and within 5 minutes of my interview she looked at me and said, "do you want the job?" I immediately said yes. I had thought about the decision, and I always said that I would go back to teaching every subject (6th grade you only teach one subject several times a day so you have A TON less planning to do) if I did not have to worry about TCAPs. Well Kindergarten through 2nd grade at this school does not have to take TCAPs. I knew that it was what I was supposed to do, but I felt terrible leaving Ellis. The principal had been so wonderful to me during my time there, and I had made so many new friends there. I decided to step out on a limb though and make the career move. I now drive literally 10 minutes (max) to work, my students are incredible, I get to leave work at 2:30, and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays my students go to Related Arts at 12:45 and do not return until the buses are about to load up. Plus, on the other days I am finished teaching by 1:15 so that they can go to one Related Art class on those days. It is an INCREDIBLE job, EXCEPT FOR THE EVALUATION PROCESS. I really love teaching and adore my students, but I HATE getting evaluated. The paper work is terrible and takes a lot of time, and I get very nervous about my principal, assistant principal, and our sumner county evaluator being in the room. I finished last year's evaluations with flying colors, but honestly before you are tenured a principal can not re-hire you back just because they do not like the color of your hair. I had two evaluations (one from the county and one with my principal) the week before Thanksgiving week. They went great. It is almost like my sweet first graders were feeling my pain of getting every little word and move observed. They were angels! Today I had my LAST evaluation for this year with my assistant principal. It went equally as great! I was so excited when it was over that the students and I decided to go over the top with the Christmas decorations for the classroom. We put our tree up, they made snowmen that I hung from the ceiling, wrote letters to Santa, and I gave them lots of candy. I was so proud of how well-behaved they were, and I felt so peaceful knowing that I had made it through another year of evaluations. I will have 3 more next year, and then I will be officially tenured!! I am so thankful to have a job that I LOVE, and for my incredible students. I'm sure I will brag more on them in the blogs to come. They are precious!

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