Decision Time

Twice now, I've received email messages from the school corporation's main office asking me to let them know if I'm going to return to school in my same position for the next school year.  Twice, I've ignored the message as I usually make that decision closer to the end of the school year.  A recent turn of events, however, may force me to make that decision real soon.  Gnu had a performance review with the BigB2 a few days ago.  The performance review went very well but just before the meeting ended Gnu was asked what her intentions were for the next school year.  I know Gnu, like me, was uncertain about the next school year.  For me, it was a matter of retiring or not as I will be sixty-eight soon after the next school years begins.  For Gnu, the birth of her son, some time in early June of this year, will be the deciding factor for her.  Faced with the return next year question asked by the BigB2, Gnu informed her that she is going to take Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and return to the classroom in January of 2018.  With Gnu's future identified, the BigB2 asked Gnu what my intentions were.  She responded, "you'll have to ask him." 

While Gnu's decision to stay out of the classroom until January 2018 didn't surprise me, it did bring about a couple lengthy conversations between the two of us about how the next school year will start.  The game plan right now, according to the BigB2, is to try and locate a long term substitute teacher.  Note, every time you read the word substitute, red flags should go up as my four and a half years of experience with substitutes, especially in an emotionally handicapped (EH) classroom, has not been good.  The thought of a long term substitute was not appealing to me and Gnu recognized it immediately so she said something to me that caught me off guard.  "Why don't you approach the BigB2 and tell her you are interested in being the long term substitute.  Keep in mind, substitutes get paid twenty dollars and hour," she said.  The additional money would be nice but money is not the reason I'm in this classroom.  I believe I have the ability to move to the front of the room as I've done it numerous times before but there is one part of occupying the front of the classroom that I'm not skilled enough to do, create lesson plans for three grade levels and up to five academic levels.  When I mentioned this fact to Gnu she came right back at me with this, "you don't need to do the lesson plans.  You know that if you went to any fourth, third, or second grade teacher and asked them to share their lesson plans with you they'd do it without question."  While Gnu is right about the lesson plans, ninety days in the front of the classroom is a daunting task.  One that I'll have to think about.

Ok, let's get to the crux of the matter as it is not Gnu's absence, it is not a long term substitute, or a series of short term substitutes, or if I'm at the front of the classroom.  The crux of the matter is very clear and both Gnu and I recognize it.  How are the scholars going to react to the change?  If everything goes according to plan, Grr!, S&T, Huey, and Tourette will return for the next school year.  Grr!, S&T, and Tourette will be in the fourth grade.  Huey will be in the third grade.  When Grr! first starting coming into our classroom it was for one hour a day.  That's it.  That's all he could manage without going into some serious outbursts of anger.  That behavior is very rare now.  S&T came into the classroom with an IQ so low that he could have easily been placed in a life skills classroom.  That didn't happen and academically he is making progress to the point that he wants to voluntarily stay after school for additional help.  S&T is also the scholar that will miss Gnu the most.  Any day that he walks into the classroom and he doesn't see Gnu, he turns immediately to me and ask me why she in not in the classroom.  Huey, when he arrived, had anger issues, was defiant, and often refused to do any work.  That does not happen very often now.  Just last Friday, Huey stood in the front of the classroom and gave an oral presentation on the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson and he did a wonderful job.  Tourette, the manipulator, the scholar that could put together the longest sting of obscenities that I've ever heard, hasn't made much progress but at least he progressed past the point of getting so volatile that he gets suspended from school.  So, the crux of the matter is quite simple, neither Gnu nor I want the scholars to regress back to their former selves if we are not in the classroom.

I'm sitting at the kitchen table right now.  On the table next to me is an established in 1885 bottle of Dr. Pepper and a container of salted, shelled peanuts.  Directly in front of me is a window that faces east and I'm watching snow slowly fall to the ground.  As I'm sitting at the table I'm running these scenarios through my head.  There is either a long term or a series of short term substitute teachers in the classroom and a new instructional assistant as I don't return.  Will the scholar make progress or regress?  There is a substitute in the front of the classroom and I'm still in the classroom.  Will the scholars make progress or regress?  I move to the front of the classroom and there is a brand new instructional assistant in the classroom.  Will the scholar make progress or regress?  Four of our scholars are scheduled to return next year but will the overhead personnel, the very same personnel that rarely step foot in Gnu's classroom, decide to add several scholars to the classroom so our total goes back to ten scholars as it was at the start of the school year.  Will our scholars make progress or regress.  That's a lot to think about and I know, lurking in the background, is the BigB2 and soon she will call me to her office and ask for my return or don't return decision.

During the week, if something occurs in the classroom that I want to include in the blog, I write the event on a note pad on my cell phone.  Right now I have too many notes so I'm going to get rid of a couple before I call it a day.

One morning, sorry, I can't recall the exact morning, an email message poured into my mailbox at school.  The email message was from our school corporation superintendent and it was referencing a school that was promoting a student leadership program for the scholars of this particular school.  As I continued reading the message, the superintendent mentioned that those scholar that are successful in this leadership program are eligible to earn "paraphernalia."  As I looked at the word paraphernalia the first thing that came to mind was bong, roach clip, and rolling papers.  Surely, I'm using the wrong definition for the word paraphernalia.

Tourette has been making regular stops at our school gift store in the morning when he arrives at school.  His purchases are simple, cheap mechanical pencils, gel pens, erasers, and small note pads.  After making payment for his purchases, he promptly picks up his breakfast from the cafeteria and heads to our classroom.  Upon arrival in the classroom, he starts giving away all of his purchases to our scholars.  On one particular morning I watched what he was doing and thought to myself that he spent quite a bit of money at our gift store so I mentioned my concern to Gnu.  "Yes, I know," she said to me.  "I've spoken to his parental unit and here is the response I got."  "Oh, that's Tourette.  He just takes money off my desk without asking," in a matter of fact way with little laugh.  The parental unit thinks it's funny.  The parental unit does nothing about it.  The parental unit is incompetent and I don't have to gaze into a crystal ball to see what Tourette's future will be like.

That's it for the day.  It's decision time or will be very soon.  What to do?  What to do?  Maybe I'll take a reader survey and get some feedback.  Thanks for continuing to follow the musing of an old, gray haired, wrinkly faced man, who spends way to much time on Sunday's writing this blog.