As many of you may know, I have been trying to land an English teaching job for a year now. I picked a really bad year to try to get a job. One disadvantage is that I am an ARL candidate, which in short means, I'm not a certified teacher, but the Board of Education is willing to let me start teaching and get certified later. I do however, have a masters degree, teaching experience at the college level, great letters of recommendation, and interview well. But still, no job. Did you hear about Jordan School District's woes?
It is also true that I am being fairly picky. I don't want to teach at a charter school because I would be at the mercy of parents. Parents, who are often the board, run charter schools. All you have to do is piss off one riley mother and you could lose your job. The charter acts as its own district so there is little if no due process when canning a teacher. At BYU, the professors were literally advising all potential teachers to stay away from charters based on bad news from former students who had tried the teaching option. Also, charter schools have not been around long enough to show that they can afford to pay teachers as they go up the pay scale and not suprisingly, I heard of a charter school recently which fired three senior teachers in order to hire cheaper, younger, teachers.
Also, I don't want to commute, which leaves me with school districts like say, Jordan, whose woes are numerous. I am also looking at Canyons and potentially Granite (but then I start having to drive).
I don't want any part time position because it leaves me without insurance, which is one of my main motivations to get a job. That excludes teaching at a community college or BYU (which I couldn't handle. Sundays are about as much church as institution I can handle in a week.)
I am having to find alternative ways to get hired at a district job, i.e. substitute teaching. Tomorrow I go to the training.
The second I got my paper work in I got a call saying that a teacher had gotten in a car accident and would I be interested in teaching English for the rest of the year? Answer, yes. Which is what I told them, until I remembered, I'll be in Europe for two and a half weeks. Yikes. There's a sticker.
So now it is back to square one of no job and no prospects. (But lots of homemade jam and delicious meals. Oh, and Europe.)
Send me some job energy, please?
5 comments:
sending it. i think europe is worth saying no. you need europe as much as you need health insurance.
Thanks for the rant about charter schools, good to know! Job are overrated, but then, keep in mind that's coming from a stay-at-home mother. Let's meet for lunch sometime!! ;)
we need to go have some pho and compare notes. as of next week i will be officially unemployed and i am very depressed about it. i had several people tell me that since i had a master's i most likely couldn't be hired at a public school because they wouldn't want to pay me at the level they have to for master's degrees . . . (no wonder schools are struggling--they are disinclined to hire component people) I've been looking at a charter school too. hmmm . . .
obviously i am not "competent" because i can't spell. though i am blaming it on the spell checker . . .
I was a substitute for Jordan when I first got married. It was my absolute favorite job ever! Obviously I wasn't going for long term career, but it's a great way to see the different schools and get to know the administrators and teachers. That's how I learned that I would never want to work in a middle school! Good luck . Hopefully you'll find what you're looking for.
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