Damien at the Speed of Life

Until now, I haven’t chosen to disclose here that I was recently selected to be a Summer School Lead Teacher.  First of all, I thought it might come off as bragging and second I wasn’t sure how successful I would be at it, of course that is still to be determined.  At any rate today was my first day in the planning stages with the other 3 lead teachers and the Summer school Principal.  We worked out some logistical things like mailing letters to families and getting the supplies to the separate schools.  During a meeting, we had a real-life application of the budget crisis in California.  The crisis requires us to cut a huge chunk of money from every program we offer across the board … including Summer school.

All staff was invited to make suggestions in an email last week as to how we can save money or generate revenue.  I actually submitted my idea of paperless classrooms.  I haven’t the slightest idea how much schools spend of paper each year but my guess would by multiple millions.  There are ways to use projection screens, powerpoint, whiteboards and dry-erase markers to conduct effective lessons without paper.  Ideas and innovation will need to be used to get through this crisis.

The solution most popular was to chop Fridays off the Summer school weeks.  The program as-is consists of three 5-day weeks and one week having Friday off because it’s the day before 4th of July.  In other words, employees and teachers would be paid 2 days less than the original format.  Not to bad of a solution.  As far as the kids go, they seem happy about having Friday’s off.  This could turn out to be a good thing retaining more kids than we thought we would and adding some new ones.

To be honest, the bidget crunch has not felt personal to me until this.  I guess I assumed in education, we were like the military and our paychecks would be solid guarantees.  That’s one of the reasons I got into education, for security.  A mentor once told me, “You’ll never be rich as a teacher, but you’ll always make ends meet.”  Feeling this latest bite has me wondering if that will necessarily be true.  I teach because I preferred the human product to the pizza one.  All I’ve ever really done besides teaching is manage a restaurant.  Counting the profit/loss of cheese, toppings, labor, and rent was never as gratifying to me as seeing kid grow his score from a Far Below Basic to a Proficient.  That “does it” for me.  I always trusted the State and believed teachers would be taken care of.  I feel now this crisis may be so out of control that security is an abstract term.

Having said all that, I still pledge allegiance to the learning transaction.  That magic spark that happen when a kid has an “aha” moment is what keeps me coming back, ever-trying to be a dynamite teacher.  We may need to make some real sacrifices and this has me wondering if the wheat will be separated from the chaff.  In other words, will those who really aren’t passionate about teaching continue to do it?

Has the budget crisis  affected your district?