Butterflies

I realize that I told you I got a job for the fall, but I don't believe I said WHAT job I got...

It wasn't a library job, which is what I've been interviewing for the past THREE summers. Bummer. School library jobs are about as scarce as money trees where I live, with districts that have traditionally had librarians in all their buildings cutting all but ONE of their library positions. Good times. Most elementary schools around here have a "librarian" but they are not paid on the professional teacher scale and many of them do not have library or even education degrees.  That, I suppose, is a conversation for another day.

ANYWAY - If I was going to go back to work, but not in a school library, the job I have is exactly the one I would have chosen. I am going back to the school where I did my student teaching, and then where I worked for years 3 and 4 of my career, leaving at the end of the school year when I was pregnant with Harper.

You guys, I LOVE THIS SCHOOL. I wish I could link to the website here, but that would be pinpointing a little too precisely where we live. (If you already know where we live, you could, uh, just do a search for independent schools in this area, and you'd find it.)

I am going back to teach first grade - which happens to be the grade I taught previously at this school and at the school where I worked the first two years of my career. Certainly some things have changed in the past eight years, but enough of it is the same that I'm not stepping into completely unfamiliar territory.

Have I mentioned that the school I will work at is about four minutes from our house? There are songs on my iPod that will last longer than my commute.

The school where I'm working is an independent school - which means a lot of good things, but one of the best is that our maximum class size in the lower grades is 18 students. Yup. 18 students is a BIG class at this school. Things can still change before the start of the year, or even during the year, but right now there are 12 names on my class list. Love it.

The icing on the cake is the fact that the people I'm going to be working most closely with - the other first grade teacher, the reading specialist, and my principal are all people I've know since I did my student teaching. They are amazing educators that I have tremendous respect for and I know that working with them raises the level of my own teaching. Not only that, these women are my friends. And have been for years. I get to go to work every day with people I adore.

So here I am, thirteen days from the beginning of the school year. I'm thrilled about the job and nervous as heck about the how this transition will go for our family. I have that feeling I used to get standing in line for the big roller coasters at the amusement park, especially when the wait was long... pretty sure I'm going to have a blast, but not 100% certain that it won't kill me.