When I was in Denver, we never had to worry about signing a contract. Our renewals would be based on our evaluations.
Arizona is a WHOLE different ball game. My contract for the 2018-2019 school year is coming in the next few weeks. I have to decided to sign it and have a job next year or not sign it and start looking elsewhere. I am truly torn as to what I should do. I started creating a pros and cons list of staying in my current district.
Pros
- I have a great group of students, and will have them for the next 2 years.
- My paraprofessionals are amazing. They do what I ask and they even do what I don’t ask. They are the backbone of my classroom.
- I am basically free to do whatever I want with my students. I can do whatever I need to do to make sure my students are successful.
- My pay is good. And right now the benefits are good (This will change, but not until after I sign my contract).
Cons
- There is no future for me in my district. I can continue in my classroom for as long as I want to, but if I wanted to grow or lead, I would have to become an admin.
- “It’s always been this way mentality.”
- Little to no room for innovation. I’m not just talking about technology (I have 4 “sped” ipads and they are so old they can no longer be updated, but more on that in another post). I am talking about teachers using 2 column notes as the only tool students will use in high school. No project based learning, lots of sit and get, and that is just in teachers professional development.
- Speaking of professional development, I get 4 hours a month. And of those 4 hours, 3.75 of them are just spent going over what we are doing wrong or need to be doing. No actual development of the teacher, and definitely no development of individual teacher needs.
- Don’t get me started on the SPED department, that is another full blog post.
- And the biggest con I have, THE MAJORITY OF DISTRICT IS COMPLICIT! Seriously, I have never seen so much ego stroking and pacification ever. I have been told many times, I just need to accept it as the way it is, and if I don’t like it deal with, but PLEASE DON’T LEAVE. Everything is compartmentalized, I need something from DO, I need to go through, the principal, who will put it through to the secretary who will get it over to DO. And if I go straight the person at the DO that I have worked with previously, I will get my hand slapped.As I have described to many people, I have it pretty sweet right now. I am left alone, my lesson plans are ridiculously simple, I only have to worry about my room… but I want to more, and I want more in my life.
So to sign or not to sign, that is the question.