Summer’s End

On August 6, 2023August 6, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

There are three stages to Back to School. Stage One, “Backish,” begins tomorrow. I have professional development from 7:30 to 2:30 tomorrow and Tuesday, but it’s not required and, in fact, I’m getting paid for it. If I decide I’m bored and I want to cut out halfway through (and it’s PD, so this is a virtual guarantee) nothing bad happens other than I don’t get paid for all of the time unless I can figure out a way to fake it. I will very likely be at school at least two days out of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, working in my classroom. I will be on my own schedule and not getting paid.

I will also probably spend a lot of money on school shit this week, unfortunately. The week of Backish is often one of the most expensive of the year.

(Money burning a hole in your pocket? Feeling generous? My teacher wish list is here; all of that is for classroom use.)

The second stage of Back to School is “Back.” That happens next week; ie, a week from tomorrow. I have three days of required PD, I have to take sick days if I’m not there, and there are orientations on Tuesday and Wednesday and I expect both to be 11- or 12-hour days. I will not spend a lot of money during Back but I will be tired as hell.

The third stage of Back to School is “Back-back,” sometimes italicized, as “Back-back,” and that happens Thursday, when the kids return to class. I do like that I only have kids two days during the first week back. I’m less happy with the road trip we have planned for the following weekend, but that’s how the timing worked out.

So. Yeah. We’re backish. We’re not back, and we’re not back-back (see?), but we’re backish.

Year 20, motherfuckers.

The answer to this question is “No.”

On August 10, 2019 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching1 Comment

…and it should probably just be a Facebook post.

Do I want to pursue administrative certification?

I don’t, right? Because really the only reason I might want to be a principal is the higher pay and not being in the classroom any longer, and neither of those are good reasons. And I’d have to take classes, and I’d have to pay tuition when my current student debt load is already more than I make in a year, and I’d have to figure out where to apply to take those classes, and that costs money, and … well, I’d have to be a principal, which if anything is even more impossible a job than being a teacher is.

I’m fine with making roughly $55K a year for basically the rest of my career, and being locked into this district, because the way the law works moving to any other district nearby will permanently lower my salary by probably $5-10K a year. Right? Sure I am. And just because I’ve been looking for three straight years for jobs that pay similarly to what I can earn as a teacher in my current district and literally haven’t found a single thing that was even close doesn’t mean that those jobs won’t magically appear soon. They’re out there! I’m just really bad at job hunting. And have been for three years.

Gaaaaaaaaaah. Somebody shove an icepick into whatever part of my stupid brain keeps bringing this idea up.

On what I’m not doing right now

On August 12, 2016August 12, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

For the last fifteen years, the week before school starts has been, hands down and far away, the busiest week of the year. The “first day for teachers” at my old district is next Tuesday, meaning that every teacher I know has been back to work for a week already, and the kids start back next Wednesday. My son starts back to school on Friday.

Summer’s over, folks, and my schedule will change barely at all. I’ll have to get up a bit earlier, since I’ll start needing to have the boy at school at 8:15 or so rather than at day care at 8:45 or so, but other than that (and finding something to do with the extra minutes I’ll acquire between dropping him off and getting to work at nine) I have no special responsibilities at all this week.

I am torn between a weird sort of wistful nostalgia and this: