interviews...

Sent off six more resumes and had two more interviews.

The first was for a second grade position at a private school. I drove up and knew it wasn't going to pay well. The school is located in an economically depressed area and the campus was very small, the buildings shabby. Paint was peeling off the sides of the buildings, lawn neglected. I almost wanted to cancel right there and not waste my time but I was there so I went in. My wishful thinking also had me trying to rationalize that since school had already started on Tuesday and they were in need of another teacher that perhaps they would offer me decent money out of desperation. Ha! Not. About 8 min into the interview she interrupted me and said, "Look, I'd love to have you but I need to let you know up front that the most I could pay you would be $30,000." (she was serious) It's sad; it's a 100% African-American school that's been around for 54 years and that's all they can pay their teachers? How on earth can they attract talented, committed teachers?? If they've been around for 54 years you would think they would have s figured out how to do some serious fundraising, have partnerships and sponsors, receive grants and have auctions. She said the tuition hadn't been raised in years to make it affordable for the community ($6,000/year) but I would think if they could raise tuition and fundraise, they might be able to attract more qualified teachers, beautify the campus, strengthen the programs, offer financial aid and perhaps attract families outside of the immediate area who would be able to pay the full tuition. Hell, what do I know, that's not my area of expertise but those kids deserve so much more and it seems so doable. Well, I can' t help them out so I crossed that school off my list.

Later on in the day I went to my second interview. It was for a Kindergarten job in one of my former districts. I liked the school when I finally arrived. It was far. I have never commuted more than 30 minutes in my entire working career so the hour drive wasn't fun, but I left there with a good feeling about the place. The vice principal called me to schedule the interview so I thought it was just going to be the two of us in the room, like my morning interview. One on one interviews like that don't make me nervous --if for a teaching job. I usually feel pretty confident and can answer the questions pretty well. Well, the principal came to get me in the reception area (where I was waiting with another woman who was obviously the next candidate) and led me down a quiet hallway. As he put his hand on the knob he said, "We are all kind of crammed into this little space. I have a group of people helping me with this process." Did he ever! I walked into a little room, about 14x14, with a large conference table taking up the majority of the space. Every seat of the conference table was taken (except for mine) with a total of ten people in the room: the principal, vice principal, reading specialist, some other support person and six Kindergarten teachers! There went my sense of calm! I was so nervous, but they looked like a friendly bunch and I felt prepared and within a couple of minutes I was at ease. It was actually fun--for an interview! We were all laughing and joking and I felt quite comfortable with the staff. I think it went pretty well. I asked how they imagined this transition was going to go (school started last week) and he said the person hired would get a nice classroom near to the other K teachers. One of the present K teachers would move to another part of the building to make the transition easier on the new hire, which I liked. Also, apparently the district will allocate a day for a new hire to prepare the classroom and lessons but he was going to advocate for two days; and he said he would ask the current teachers to do most of the decorating of the new room so it looks like the other K classes. That's great cause I really don't have many K materials. It was very well thought out to make the transition for the new hire as smooth as possible.

So different from an experience I once had in California. I was teaching Kindergarten and due to enrollment, our school had to make a K/1 combination class in October. I was a brand new teacher to the district but my principal still wanted me to teach the class--not relevant to her that I would then have to learn two new curricula. On top of that she told me this on a Friday afternoon and expected me to be ready by Monday--in a different classroom! When I asked her when this was supposed to get done, she said, "You better speak to the custodians about their schedules cause you are going to have busy weekend I guess." Nice.

Anyway, at the Kindergarten job they said that the district would allow them to hire in the next week or two, which is exactly what I heard from the other three schools where I left my resume. The other three are all also Kindergarten positions. One is 20 minutes from my house and a good friend of mine teachers K there. One is down the street from my old school and has an initiative in place to study the achievement gap. That would be very interesting. The third is a quick ten minutes from my house. I think I might prefer any of those to commuting an hour, though a good fit depends on so many other factors so not necessarily. What I really hope is to get offers from at least two so I have options.


My second grade class in Long Beach.