The End?
June 26, 2009. The last day for teachers. This has been one long damned year.
The agreement to trade pension concessions for a post-Labor Day return passed. (I voted no, twice). We go back Tuesday, September 8. And then a follow up pushed the kids’ start back to Wednesday, September 9.
Can you imagine we had to negotiate to get the DoE not to start kids and teachers on the same day? In the spirit of the moment, a friend proposed that we work the Jewish holidays as well, and in exchange start Thursday, one day after the kids…
The summer, for me, is not yet in focus. Possibilities exist…
- A math conference in the Finger Lakes in August. (5 days, definitely going). Tom Chapin’ll be there… ? ..?
- The AFT called me (called ME) to ask about summer volunteer teacher organizing in the South. (two or three weeks, if I do it)
- Presentation on methods in the mathematics classroom (not as much of a yawn as it sounds, problem solving, mostly) in a warm, Caribbean nation, along with a full week stay?
- Programming. The last Summer.
- Working (informally) with fellows and new teachers.
- Working a couple weeks with not so new teachers?
- A real trip (when I finally decide I can’t fit it in, I may describe where I would have gone. Would have been fun!)
- And finally, a slim chance that I will trade blogging for a completely new sort of activity… (I’ll explain only if it happens)
So this is really a beginning, right? (Just like “commencement” is the end and the, honestly, it doesn’t make that much sense)
For NYC teachers, it is the end.
It’s the end of a long year. Full of stress, exhaustion. Teachers with awful principals felt it. Good teachers in good schools felt it. This year was long for all of us.
Relax. Recharge. Make your own plans. Or don’t. But this time is yours. You’ve earned it.
JD2718 
Hi JD,
I’m a teacher and programmer at a small school as well. I definitely agree with you about programming being a huge weight on my back that I have to worry about every summer (I’m so sick of per session). I, too, am thinking of giving up my hat in terms of programming in the next year or two. How have you gone about finding and training a replacement or was that the responsibility of the admin? The only reason I haven’t quit yet is because I cannot think of anyone on the staff that has the potential skills and willingness to give up endless hours to get this kind of job done. Are you still the union rep?