Well, I've finally arrived at what could be the most painful time in life I can remember. I think I've been avoiding this one deliberately, as I still have nightmares about it.
My time at Tom Williams had ended, and my time at Gilbert was beginning. Originally, Gilbert was a mere 3 miles from our apartment. That is, it was close until our apartment had a foreclosure notice stamped on the door on my checkout day at TW! In the 2-3 week August break, we had to pack and find a new place. At $100 less a month, we found a place 6 miles from Gilbert! That meant my commute had gone down by 1 mile total. It also meant I had NO time to go in and prep my new room.
Come back to school week for teachers, I tried to focus on all the opening crap while trying to figure out how to organize my room, especially since the previous teacher had left so much crap in there! With little to go on, I started my year.
It went pretty well at first. I was now doing 4th grade and the class was pretty nice. I met some nice staff members as well. There was a period a few times a week called explorations where students went to another room and learned a craft or skill. I teamed with the resource teacher on a few of them, it was pretty fun. The fun lasted about 2 months.
When one is used to having a break in November for seven years straight, NOT having one suddenly creates an exhaustion. On top of that, my grandmother's health was getting worse, so we spent our anniversary weekend in San Diego to spend some time with her. Coming back, school was getting ready for a December showcase event so the focus was on that as well as academics. In December, our master bathroom was leaking water from above, so the plaster and plumbing had to be redone.
After Christmas, the principal was coming down on me for lack of proper classroom decoration as well as my teaching style and classroom management. I was already exhausted so why not extend that via stress? I moved desks around and made a bonehead move in terms of student placement...and classroom management went right out the window. It got so bad that the principal had me watch the literacy specialist teach for a while. If this didn't de-spirit any teacher, I don't know what would.
In February, Vickie finally found her father after years of searching. In April, we got a chance to go up and see him during spring break while my mom watched Natalie. That was the highlight of my school year, and that's saying a lot. In class, the kids knew quite well that I was no longer in charge. The principal and I agreed that I'd put in for voluntary transfer in May. However, the school's numbers were just right, so there were no eligible transfers for our school...I was stuck. The principal was on my back, the vice principal was joining in, and the literacy specialist was doing a good job giving me a guilt complex over her added duty of helping me. My therapist was earning her money for sure!
With all of the stress building on me, I had enough. The year wasn't ending well, so in early-mid May, thanks to a suggestion from the school counselor, I put in for family medical leave. I was actually thinking of starting a new career as a cubicle-imprisoned accountant where all i had to do was work with numbers. However, after a couple of months, I was calming down. I was also under the effect of a powerful antidepressant that scrambled my brains a bit.
Fair to say, I can't end it there. In August, I was informed by the boss that I would be coming back as the literacy specialist and not a teacher. Interesting development. On return, we had a meeting over my actions in the previous year and I immediately detected her displeasure at me being there again. Easy to tell she didn't like me much. I was the chink in her otherwise perfect school.
So, I was testing students to see their reading levels, doing morning bus duty, and lunch recess duty. Once I'd tested the students, I had to create a schedule to meet with small groups. After a few stumbles, I was finally coming up with a smooth groove that lasted about 2 weeks. Then count day came, the day when student populations are measured to determine teacher need. As it turned out, there was an extra teacher: me! As agreed from the previous spring, I was to be the volunteer. We parted somewhat amicably. The other cool thing was that we were moving again, this time to a more desirable place. We were there for the last 4 days of my time at Gilbert, making it a longer commute but that was ok, the end was near. I was to begin at Darnell Elementary on October 10, with an intro to my new 4th grade class on the 7th. Indeed, my 10th year of teaching was getting interesting.
Overall, I have to say that Gilbert is a good school and they do good things there. It was just a matter of external factors along with a personality clash with my boss that made the actual teaching part hell. Great school, great kids, under different circumstances, I think I would have had a greater time of it there.
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