Countdown to the End: Day 17

Today is my son’s 2^nd birthday. We had a little party for him this morning at the breakfast table. I’m really excited for dinner tonight. If he thought the balloons meant a party, I’m sure he will love the cake and special dinner. After he went to bed last night I worked on making his treats to take to daycare. I printed minion faces to put around Twinkies. I thought about going the healthy route, but he's only 2. He has his entire school career to take healthy treats because the school makes them be healthy. Thank you Michelle Obama. This weekend we are planning a birthday party with friends and family at my mother-in-law's.

Above is his birthday breakfast.
Below is his minion cake. 

State Convention, my husband's kidney stones, the banquet, the World Food Prize, and my son's birthday have all occurred within the last 10 days. It's been pretty difficult to balance everything. I do have terrific help though. Our parents may live two hours away, but you'd never know it with as much as they help us. School things are always made easier by my students, especially when they haven't given up on anything even though they know I won't be here next year. I always feel better knowing that I can always ask for help.

Today my principal came into my classroom, and had me sign off on my portfolio. He then mentioned that they were interviewing two applicants tomorrow and Friday for my job. I then asked some other teachers if they were in on the interview process. Many said no, so now I’m a little worried that if it’s just my principal in on the interview he will pick the male over the female every time. I’m not sure what the gender choice is for the candidates, but it is obvious that he feels more comfortable with males than females. I call it the boys club here. The men in the building like him because he can talk to them about fishing or sports, and he leaves them alone to do what they want in their classrooms. The females in the building roll their eyes because he doesn’t say anything to them at all, not even a good morning while passing in the hall. He only asks us to do things that are his jobs. An example of this is when he emailed me about monitoring the parking by the greenhouse. I’m not going to leave my classroom to check out who is parked by the greenhouse, and then hunt that student down to have them move their vehicle. I can deal with the boys club. I use it to my advantage because I know he's not as comfortable with me, so when I go into his office to ask for something he usually says yes because he wants to end the meeting as soon as possible. At least that's what I assume is going on. I might just be a great negotiator. I learned early on to ask for things in person, not through email. It's too easy to say no through an email.

I would say that if my administrators had been different I might have stayed longer, or I would have tried harder to work out a way to balance my family life and school life. I know administrators come and go, and I could have waited for these administrators to go, but the morale in the building is just so low. It feels like our administration doesn’t care about us. I know we aren’t paying them to care, but they at least need to be excellent leaders to give the teachers what they need to be excellent teachers. It's high stress for teachers because not only are we expected to teach students curriculum, we are also expected to care and help raise these students. Why shouldn't we hold administrators to a higher standard? I know many people have problems with their bosses and they suck it up, quit whining, and deal with it. This is what many teachers in our district do everyday because they have to. I'm thankful I won't have to do that anymore, but my biggest concern for the future of education still remains the administration in schools.

I know I made the right decision because I won’t have to do another portfolio, or career plan, or formal observation