Joining the Work Force

After 13 years away from public school teaching I am heading back.  Last week I was hired to teach at a school for gifted children down in Provo.  I am teaching Jr. High and High School Math to 5th and 6th grade students.  I teach 2 hours a day Monday through Thursday and then am paid for 4 prep hours a week, so 12 hours total.  It allows me to be home with my kids yet keep my mind on things other than my all too quiet house.

Its quite the challenge at the moment as neither the students nor I have text books, nor do I have a lesson schedule, only a vague outline for the year from the school district, as well as having to teach two different classes simultaneously.  Thankfully one of the full time teachers helps me out as I run between the classrooms.  Today was my first day and between a major traffic jam on the way down, realizing I forgot some supplies at home and needing to stop off at Walmart on the way in to replace them, arriving and finding the copy machine broken, also finding there were not enough supplies to have kids working in one of my classes nor overhead transparencies, things went smoothly!  I managed to keep the kids on task between the two classrooms with the help of my supporting teacher and I think I actually may have taught both classes something new.  Success!  I am hoping that the text books arrive soon and that I will get a computer to work with.  There is a significant amount of new technology in these classrooms and a completely new curriculum that I am not familiar with and both are really intimidating!

After the classes were over I headed to the district offices to start all the new hire paperwork only to find they didn't know where it was.  I told them I would come back tomorrow after class and hoped they would have it ready to go, something they assured would be the case today.  Considering all the hoops that needed to be jumped through just getting in the classroom today I can't really say I was too surprised.  The Asst. Superintendent had to personally sign off on my hire so I can imagine things are a little scrambled at the moment down at the district, especially considering I'm the 3rd teacher they have had in this class in 3 weeks!  NUTS!

I'm pretty excited about this new adventure and having a little more income will certainly help pay some of these hospital bills off faster.  I am also home in time to still help in the boys classrooms each week and my kids don't know the difference yet that I am not home while they are at school.  I am still here when they need me and still crack the whip with getting homework and chores done, much to their dismay sometimes.......