You Dropped A Bomb On Me

On Friday my principal emailed me to say she wanted to chat during my plan time.  Call it a premonition or just common sense, but I immediately felt a sense of dread and knew she was about to drop a bomb on me.  I knew our conversation was going to be about her wanting to move me to a different grade level next year.  Around this time last year, she moved one of my old co-workers, who had been teaching first grade for 16 years, to third grade without asking her opinion and with absolutely no regard to her seniority in the building.

Sure enough, I was right.  She wants to move me to teach Kindergarten next year.  She tried to butter me up by complimenting me first, saying how I have so much patience and how I do such a good job teaching reading, which is a foundational part of Kindergarten.  After she was done basically kissing my a**, she actually asked my opinion.  I'm not saying that she'll take into account any word of what I said.  This is only her second year of being principal and I think she is still on some kind of twisted power trip.

I told her that I appreciated her compliments, but I was happy where I was.  I teach first grade and this is my third year teaching it.  Prior to teaching first grade, I taught third and second as well.  I brought that up in our conversation, too.  I said that if she were to move me to Kindergarten next year, that would be my fourth move in the span of six years.  I told her that it stresses me out just thinking that I might have to move next year.  I also told her that if I wanted to teach Kindergarten I would have already applied to move.  She got really flustered and upset and by the end of the conversation basically told me, "Well, I'm not sure what I'm going to do right now, but if I have to move you, I have to move you.  I'll let you know later what I decide."

My old principal actually respected seniority, but not this one.  Two of my first-grade co-workers are younger than me and have less experience than me.  One of them has even taught Kindergarten, but she's already talked to our Principal and told her that she wants to stay at first grade.  So now I'm the one on the chopping block.  I hate to make it sound so dire, but unless you're a teacher, it's really hard to understand why this move would be so hard.  The best way I can explain it to a non-teacher is, changing grade levels is like changing jobs.  Having already taught three grade levels, I've already "changed jobs" three times in five years. 

I feel like I'm just getting more and more frustrated with my job, my boss, my co-workers, the whole nine yards.  I told my husband that if there's any way I'm able to just work one more year, I will quit next May and never look back.  He is supposed to walk in the Law school graduation ceremony in May, but then he'll still have 4 more classes to finish up during summer school.  The nice thing about my job is that even though school is out in May, I still get benefits and am paid over the summer, clear through July.  I told him that if I'm able to get a part-time job next summer to tide us over until he starts working full-time, I'd rather do that than have to work at this school for two more years.