Cautiously Optimistic (but still really nervous)

Today was pink slip day in across the State, meaning all teachers whose jobs are in jeopardy had to be notified by today.

I did not recieve a pink slip, and did not even get brought into my principal's office to discuss what grade level I will end up in next year. (This is a first.)

I hesitate to get too excited because there are going to be major changes in my district and at my school. If the bill to extend our current tax rates does not pass in June (it is likely to not pass, since who would vote to keep taxes up and pay teachers?) then our district has to come up with 2.1 million dollars for the next school year. Things on the table to be cut? After school programs, transportation, teacher raises, furlough days and of course, making classes bigger and laying off teachers.

Even though I am most likely safe in Kindergarten (even other teachers think it is the worst and hardest grade, and they are welcome to keep thinking that!), one teacher at my school got a pink slip, 2 are most likely going to another school, and 2 more are headed to upper grades after years of experience in lower grades. I am the only new teacher at my school (maybe even the only one, come to that!) who has never had to move classrooms, and who has only had to change grades once. I can't help but wonder if I will get thrown into the shuffle.

So while I am so relieved to not have a pink slip, there is definitely an air of foreboding in the halls (well, I guess walkways, since we have no enclosed halls) of Deer Canyon. So much depends on so many other things (will the bill pass? how many students will register? will any teachers retire? will any teachers decide to job share? will any teachers volunteer to change grades/schools?) and this makes it worse. Teachers are by nature planners and organizers, and give them too many variables and they are likely to spontaneously combust.

It all makes me want to storm the capitol building and demand to know how a state with 38 million people in it can be broke. I want to know why we spend more on our prisoners than we do on our students. I want to know why a state that has the 5th largest economy in the world (bigger than many countries!) has taxes so high that people and businesses are fleeing our state.

Then I remember, wait a minute, this world is not my home. Thank God (literally) for that.