Thursday, August 18, 2011

Time of Transition

I can not believe that summer is over already.  It went way too fast! Our family is about to start a whole new chapter in our life.  Kaylie is starting Kindergarten (more on that in another post), and I am also starting at a new school.  Around 3rd quarter last year I was starting to become frustrated with work.  I wasn't sure if it was just that time of year or if it meant something.  I prayed, asking God, if this meant I should start moving on from Southeast.  Then things started getting a little bit better, so I assumed it was just the time of year and things would be fine.
I got busy preparing the Student Vs. Faculty basketball game as a fundraiser for the Class of 2013.  Shout out to Coach Harder for, well, just being awesome and helping me out so much! That Friday I was tying up lose ends with the game and I got called down to the office.  I was told that my contract was not renewed.  For legal reasons, no one could tell me any reasons about why.  I freaked out.  Thanks to my friend, Becky, I had coverage of my class the last period.
I think I was not so much upset that I lost my job, but that it seemed like someone didn't like me.  I am very much a people-pleaser and try not to make any enemies.  As I was freaking out and crying, I suddenly remembered a couple of months back when I had been praying about my job.  Duh! God answered my prayer, just not in the way I expected! I know now that God was in control of the situation, it was just hard to remember those first few hours especially.
That night I had to return to school to run the basketball game.  I was still a little angry and upset, but my students are far more important to me than anything else in my job.  The basketball game went fairly well and we raised quite a bit of money.

The rest of the school year was bittersweet.  I cannot express how thankful I was for the support from the other teachers in my hallway/building.  They were amazing (and I found out later just how amazing!).  I knew that God had a plan for me, so i wasn't worried so much about finding a job.  I was just disappointed that I would be leaving some great friends and some great students behind.  I plan on returning to some sporting events and the graduation.
I started the job search pretty early on, but there really aren't any leads on teaching positions until a few weeks into the summer. I had an interview at Cardinal Mooney, IMG, and at Southeast.  The timing of return phone calls/emails in that whole process was definitely God working again.  Although I did not completely listen to Him at first!
The schedule at IMG is not ideal for a mother of small children, which led to me, once again, freaking out.  After a lot of prayer, talking to trusted friends, and just some time to process everything, I realized that God knows what he is doing and He has a plan for me.  It will work out!  I'm excited to have small class sizes and students with goals in life.  I will be teaching Geometry (I have taught for 2 years already) and AP Stats (I have never taught an AP class before!).  I know there will be a lot of adjustments and challenges switching to Pendleton, but I have faith that it will all be worth it.

2 comments:

  1. Wishing the best for you, Amy, as you move to a different school. Your clientele will certainly be different, and you will face a different set of problems and rewards.

    I wish that I had changed schools some during my years in teaching here, instead of staying in the same school for 26 years. It is hard to leave good friends, but since you'll be going back for activities, you won't lose touch.

    I'll be thinking of you in this move.

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  2. Yayyy, you're going to rock that job, no doubt! Makes my heart happy to see you trusting God & watching Him work out His plan in your life :)

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