The whole Job Saga

It's official - I have a job and now I think I can tell the whole story. If you read the previous blogs you know about non-continuing contracts. At the end of the year principals can ask the school board to convert contracts to a preliminary contract. They rarely do so in the middle of the year because it's not necessary. In January my principal told me she was going to recommend converting my contract. Of course as the state budget saga began, I just assumed that wouldn't happen at the end of the year because they were going to end up laying off teachers. Last week we had a faculty meeting where my principal went over the process of what would happen as layoff notices went out and how recall procedures would happen. As part of the meeting she asked us all to stand up and then called out different scenarios and if it applied to us we had to sit down. The school is only 5 years old and has a very young staff. By the time she reached what she thought would be school board's decision more than half the staff was seated and losing their job. I sat down at the very first when she asked those with non-continuing contracts to sit down. After the shock of the meeting I sent a request to my principal for a letter of recommendation.

Monday morning I was met at the office door by my principal, who never beats me to work, with a request to talk with me. I figured I had made a parent mad or messed up something. She told me she had been trying to get a hold of me all weekend (she had the wrong phone number) and proceeded to tell me this story:

After getting my request for a letter of recommendation and wondering why I had sat down at the meeting, she called personnel and asked why I thought I was losing my job. Their reply: She has a non-continuing contract. Her response: she shouldn't. I asked for her to be converted in January. Personnel: No you didn't. Principal: Check the minutes. Sure enough she had asked for it to go to the board in January and personnel messed up. Personnel: Well we can't do it now, the board is going to layoff people at the meeting on Wednesday. Principal: Yes you will. She called in her favors with several directors who agreed that I should be converted. Wednesday night the school board approved my conversion to a provisional contract. My seniority number due to my previous experience is high enough that no matter where the school board drew the line - I was not going to lose my position.

It's been a crazy week. I feel elated because I have a job, but sad because some of the people I really like at work are either being laid off or have a non-continuing contract. The School Board didn't lay off as many as we thought, but it's still a significant number of people at my school and my friends still fit in that section that have been laid off. Now it's just hoping the legislature will pass a budget this week so that the school district can make their budget, decide who gets their job back and then maybe my friends without contracts will be able to retain their job too!

And thank you Dana for helping me keep my job!