After a relaxing weekend, I am ready to go for what should be a pretty easy four-day work week.  With an In-service day tomorrow, an afternoon meeting on Wednesday, and an all-day "assembly" to run on Thursday, it's going to be light week. 

The in-service day tomorrow may drag a little, but it shouldn't be too stressful.  The meeting on Wednesday afternoon might be stressful, but it shouldn't be too terribly painful.  The assembly, where I volunteered to help someone speak to 8th graders about their careers and our Career & Technical Education Center shouldn't be too stressful and may actually be fun.  So, while I'm not going to be doing my "normal" job all week, it's going to be a nice little distraction to keep my batteries recharged. 

Not that the beginning of the school year has been that stressful, it's just that I'm trying to adjust to slightly different duties.  I'm a little more than half way transitioned into the new requirements from the old this year.  I'm already thinking that I'll be back at BOCES again next year for a 6th go around because I think I might be able to handle a complete schedule like the one I have in the mornings right now.  There's two things that could happen to make me change my mind--1.) the other math teacher is forced to leave and I get dumped with all 15 programs, academics and GED to have to handle or 2.)they take academics completely away leaving me just with the 8 programs I currenlty work with. 

Event #1 would mean, for the 4th time in 6 years, I'd have to do the work of 1.5 math teachers, and that's just abuse.  The first year I was there, I had to teach math to all of the programs, morning and afternoon, run academic classes (albeit not a very large number of students), and fit GED in once a week.  At the beginning of my 2nd year, I found myself doing all of that again.  This time, I was told at the beginning of the year that help was on the way in the form of a halftime math teacher who would handle academics and GED and leave me to my main duties.  That was great.  For the last three quarters of my 2nd year and all of my 3rd, my job was manageable, enjoyable, and low stress. 

Then, at the beginning of last year, my 4th, the other teacher left (he became fulltime the year before, but he decided that he wanted to become an accupuncturist).  He left as late as he could in the summer without being forced to return to work on the first day.  Well, we had a leadership change (principal and CTE director), and the director wanted to reasses the situation.  So, at the beginning of last year, I was back to the "abuse."  This time, however, I had to manage multiple academic math classes in the same room at the same time just to be able to teach all that I had to.  Finally, the director allowed us to interview, performed a second interview, and then hired someone.  The unfortunate thing--I had to teach until Thanksgiving under high stress as the person we hired was held to her mandatory 30 days notice.  After that though, things went fine the rest of the year. 

This year, my afternoon classes (the Seniors) are being taught the same way as before except with a little more flexibility in how I teach what I teach.   I have new duties with the morning classes (the Juniors) as I consult and observe the eight programs I am assigned to.  The other math teacher has the other seven as our principal wanted us to split the morning classes into two so we weren't being stretched too thin.  It should work to our advantage to have us splitting work on the curricula that need to be approved and the other things that are just too confusing to explain in a blog.  You'd have to work there to know what's going on (and have to be the director to know fully what's going on since he's been through what we are currently going through before).

Anyway, with the new "model" we are working in this year, the other math teacher and I split the morning academics up between us, with me taking two classes and her taking one.  So I can teach two classes with as much individual instruction time to each class as possible, I do weekly tests on Friday. The Math B course (the higher level math students) get Tuesdays and Thursday for instruction, while the Algebra students (two students whose school requested them to be in a slow paced class so they were able to get the entire material and be successful) get Monday and Wednesdays.  This gives me an hour each day of fulfillment.  It's normally less than that by the time the lesson is done and everyone has made the choice to do the work until the scheduled class time is over or left to take the work home.  The afternoon teaching can be rough with Seniors who are mentally already graduated, but I haven't really gotten much teaching in with all of them yet.  The academic classes however make me feel more like I am accomplishing teaching like an actual math teacher.  What I have taught in the past and what I teach the Seniors right now is important stuff that they need for real life, so it is fulfulling, but it wasn't exactly what I "signed up" to do for the rest of my career.

Moving on...Event #2 could actually have two results.  First, the other math teacher could stay at the center and we'd have just the programs we are working with both in the morning and in the afternoon.  It would allow us to have a set weekly schedule (instead of the eight-day rotational schedule I set up).  However, the actual teaching we'd do would be limited to the occasional lesson where the CTE teacher wants us to come in and teach something not related to the course directly, but that would enrich the students' experience (this is supposed to be done sparingly as the CTE teacher, in our new model of instruction, is acutally delivering all of the relevant math with no need for additional instruction "pushed in").  There'd be no point to both of us being there and we'd both be bored out of our minds.  The more likely scenario for Event #2 would be Event #1 would take place as a side effect of Event #2.  Then, I'd still have a set weekly schedule, but I'd be even less able to do any teaching.

Basically, if I can't teach a set class and make an impact, I want out of BOCES.  I'll go back to teaching at a regular middle or high school and have to deal with all the issues that I have there.  Besides, my time at BOCES has taught me a lot and, in my and other people's already voiced to me opinions, has made me a more valuable and confident teacher.

So, the moral of this rambling is that I'm ready to go back to work now that I've recharged after five weeks of establishing a routine and getting used to the new model.

God Bless!!!