Mollie, LJ and a new boss

I’m enjoying my crazy week. Two great pieces of news, first, Mollie’s good friend and college roommate got a job at a school just over a mile from Mollie’s school. They are very happy and they are looking for an apartment to share. I like the idea of her not being completely alone. They will both be teaching third grade and so it will be so easy to share ideas as well as occasionally commiserate with one another as they adjust to eight-year-olds.

Second good new is that LJ and Collin will be flying in this morning. I’ll be picking them up at the airport – a job I would cheerfully give to Mollie, since I don’t like going to the airport, but she’ll be apartment hunting. Understand I love my boys, and I’m thrilled that they are coming, I just don’t like driving to airports!

I also wanted to share a little about my new boss. We have a lady for the first time and so far, so good. You know I was not fond of my former boss. The man never listened! If I’d told him the building was on fire, he’d have to see it on the Internet before he would have believed me. And as for asking for help… if he’d been drowning and I’d shown up with a boat and a life preserver he would have ignored me while trying to hold his phone out of the water and Googling ‘water rescue’.

Not so with our ‘first lady’. We lost a position on our hall and do to low numbers we weren’t allowed to replace her. This messed up our 2person, 4 person, 4 person teams. I really wanted to keep my team together. I love my two lady partners and I’m dealing fine with Mr. K. Also with a 4-person team I only have one prep. I teach social studies all day long and I really like that. I did not want to have to spend this last year figuring how to teach something new.

About a week ago I got a call from the First Lady. She introduced herself and said she was calling me first (seniority does have it’s perks). She told me how she planned to reorganize the teams. It wasn’t what I wanted at all.  She had me doing science – however, I’m not certified in science and I told her. I did not mention that I have an associate’s degree in applied science and that in the past I’d taught it for thirteen years, because she never asked. Regardless the state doesn’t acknowledge that I’m qualified.

This messed up her plan. She knew I was certified in math and asked if I’d be able to teach that. I told her I had two answers to that question. The basic answer was yes – I can teach math and when they get out of my class they will know how to do math. I couldn’t, however, teach common core so they might not do very well on the test. I was moved from math the year that started – thank heavens!

She then stunned me by asking if I had any suggestions, not something I’d heard from a boss in the past seven years. I told her I did and to give me about an hour and I’d call her back.  It’s tricky because some of our teachers are K-6 and can teach all subject and some are 6-9 and are only certified in certain things. I worked on it a bit and called her back. I clearly told her that I’d begun looking at it by keeping my team together, but that I thought it would work. My plan had a 4-person team, a three-person and a 2-person.  The First Lady listened, looked up some certifications to make sure it would work and finally said, “This seems to work out fine. If you say it’s good, I’m going with it.” I was just amazed she was willing to listen; I never even dreamed she would just take my suggestions and do it!

At least so far!

You never know what a school year will bring, but I’m very happy about the way it’s starting out. I’ll keep you posted.

* Donna Steele is on a blog hop promoting her newest book Mac's Family. Check it out here.