Spring Update

 

As of Yesterday Shane is officially a certified teacher! Tonight is his last Special Ed Seminar meeting and after that he is only waiting on the evaluation of his final portfolio!!! Woohoo! 

(Okay, so this pic is from September, and his head is now shaved, but he's still smiling) 

We are not only celebrating that, but also the fact that after today we only have 16 more school days left in the school year!!! Strangely enough, even though lately our daily weather temps have hit  a high most days in the low 80’s, we are getting closer to summer but  have had a sudden temperature drop with temps in the low 40’s this morning and even colder overnight.  The weather down here can seem unpredictable, with 60 degree weather two weeks after a snow storm that shut down half the state for a week, to tornadoes and random heat spells, but that seems to be the case all over the world right now with weather everywhere being atypical and unpredictable.  The world seems to be going crazy, but I wonder how many times in History that has been said before. 

Well, before I share a big prayer request I would like to start with a praise. Shane was recently given his teaching schedule for next year and we are both excited for a year with a little more preparation and familiarity. For those of you that don’t know, though Shane majored in History in college, he has been kept on his toes this year with his schedule split between Sophomore and Senior Language Arts and Sophomore Chemistry (closely related I know). It’s definitely been interesting at times, and sometimes a struggle for Shane to work out the dynamics of co-teaching all of his classes (those of you that teach can probably imagine). I won’t list the issues here, but will say that we are both blessed to hear that next year he will be teaching all Sophomore Language Arts classes, with a few co-taught and a few of his own, along with starting a new program where him and another teacher spend a portion of their time working with the A.P. History students on preparing them for their Document Based Question writing, that will be make up a large portion of their A.P. Exam.  This means one prep (one class to plan for) and material and curriculum he has already worked through this year-Praise God.

Now for the prayer request.  Shane and I have been prayerfully considering what our next step is in terms of work for me next year. Mt. View expects me to come back next year, but we haven’t committed to anything. The truth is even though I love the people ,and the schedule is great with me working similar hours as Shane,  financially we can’t really afford that luxury anymore. The job has brought me a lot of stress, even pushing to the brink of quitting numerous times, and though I work full time, my pay is part-time pay.  There have been two scenarios this year where a Language Arts teacher has left due to personal reasons, that I won’t divulge here, and both times I was passed up for the spots. We recently had one of those teachers leave permanently, and the way the county works is that any laid off teacher from another school (or what they call “displaced”) gets first dibs on the job opening. I’ve never heard of anything like it before-talk about job security! There are a large number of these “displaced” teachers, so things aren’t looking too great for me right now, and this type of situation has just been salt on the wound, as I have put in a lot of time, stress, and tears for a job where I felt I was paying my dues. . . a position that looks like it might not ever pay off.  I am sending out my resume to local high schools that are within a reasonable distance and that are not a part of our county just to get my name out there, and leaving the rest up to the Lord.

Our prayer request is that in all of this we stay mindful that ultimately God is in control, and that He is the one that opens and closes doors and that we need to daily put our trust in Him.

Secondly, that if God is continuing to close this teaching door for a reason, that he would make it clear by opening up another door and pointing us in another direction. We are grateful that Shane has a teaching and coaching job that provides for the majority of our financial needs and also try to keep in mind that there are many people out there in tougher positions than we are as the current state of our nation, and the global economy at that, has affected us all in some way shape or form. 

-M.W.