Drake Relays Day

No students today; it's a teacher workday. Badly needed, I might add.

I've had a bit of a rough week, believe it or not. I found out that, according to new regulations, if I don't have a full 12 hours completed toward my special-ed college credits by August 31st, the district cannot re-hire me.

I'll have eight hours by August 31st, with my University of Phoenix course load (which is full). I won't have the remaining four until mid-November. But they won't float me an extra couple of months to get it done. It's new, apparently; none of the other teachers here who started a year before me had to do this. They had to show they were working toward it, but they didn't have to complete 12 hours their first year out.

I am already stretched to the breaking point as far as college classwork is concerned... and worse than that, I'm not sure where the money is coming from to take that extra four hours. It's interesting to me that most employers, when they require extra certification classwork, will foot at least part of the bill toward you getting it done. Not so with public schools. Not only is my paycheck rather small, but I'm now spending it all trying to jump through their new hoops.

I do know that one particular class they are requiring me to have completed is being offered this summer at Drake (which is only three blocks from my house - PTL), but it's probably going to end up costing me a thousand bucks to take the dumb thing because Drake is a private university. That's not counting the extra dough to pay a sitter while I'm in class.

But I'm going to do it. I love what I'm doing, and as insane as it seems for public schools to TURN SOMEONE AWAY when they are desperately seeking special education teachers, I will find a way to comply with the state's mandate.

This has been one of the most frustrating years of my life. Rewarding, oh yes. But trying to wade through the incomprehensible tangle of Iowa's requirements for teacher licensure has been more than daunting. It's been nearly impossible. I'll be interested to watch public education policy in the next few years when they begin to discover that they're chasing away really good potential teachers... and they're suddenly faced with students who have no teachers to fill the positions. There are only so many "permanent substitutes" you can hire, I'm guessing.

Okay, I'm done ranting for a while. I'm going to go find my pal TK and we're going to perpetrate mayhem somewhere for lunch.