Job Situation

As you know, my job has been shaky for two years now. Last year at this time, I did not have a job. I was interviewing at a different school, which held good possibilities for me, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to stay at Chatfield.

However, on the very last day of school, an English teacher at Chatfield quit. I received a call at 3 p.m. from my principal offering me her position. I accepted, of course, and the very next day, I received a call from the other school I was interviewing at and they offered me a position there. I turned them down and was so happy and blessed to be able to stay at Chatfield for another year.

As I wind down my second year of teaching, I am still facing the possibility of not having a job (at Chatfield). As God seems to do, though, He's "got my back." It's so exciting to see His hand at work when it comes to my job. It reaffirms me that I am fulfilling His calling of being a teacher.

Without getting into too many boring teaching details, I am not even working toward tenureship yet. To get tenure, a teacher has to be in a permanent position for three years plus the first day of his/her fourth year. Currently, I am in a temporary position. Even if I get a job next year, I will be a T3 (temporary with three years). It used to be that a T3 was the longest a teacher could go without being offered a permanent position. From there, he/she then had to work three more years to obtain tenureship.

This year, luckily, they have now extended the temporary position to a fourth year, which means I can teach four years on a temporary contract. That's great news for me. Without that T4, it would mean that next year would be my last year I could teach in Jeffco without being offered a permanent position (and because of budget cuts in our district, they are not handing out permanent contracts to ANYONE who does not already have one). So...next year would have been my last year teaching in Jeffco. Now, with the newest policy, I have two more years in Jeffco. Once I finish my T4, I will have to be offered a permanent position to keep teaching in my district, and from there I would have to put in three MORE years to gain tenureship.

That's the long and short of it.

Because I'm a T2, I can be bumped from my school at any time by a tenured teacher, who is guaranteed a job somewhere in the school district. So while there is a job at Chatfield for me for next year, there's been the possibility of my job being stolen by a permanent.

And that's where my story begins....

My principal told me about two months ago that as long as there was not a transfer into my job, I would be able to stay at Chatfield for at least one more year. He said transfers (known as IVT-Involuntary Transfers) were being placed and the process would take months. He said I would know if I had a job or not by the end of April. This was back in early March. So the waiting began.

In the meantime, I received a call from my dear friend, Tiffany, who was my cooperating teacher at Columbine. She's pregnant, and she decided to take next year off to stay home with the baby. Her principal told her she could hire anyone to fill her place for the year, and she thought of me. She was calling me to offer me her teaching job at Columbine. Praise God! I knew at that moment that I would have a job no matter what. What a huge relief from my shoulders.

I told her that I was waiting to hear from Chatfield and that I would choose to stay at Chatfield if an IVT didn't bump me out. I asked her to hold her position for me until I had an official word from Chatfield.

At this point, two months have gone by. Tiffany is still holding a job for me at Columbine. I'm still waiting to hear about an IVT taking my job at Chatfield. This process was supposed to be over at least a week ago.

I met with my principal on Monday, and he told me this: "Holly told me yesterday that we are most likely clear of the IVT process in English. It is not 100% yet, but very close. I wanted to keep you all in the loop. When it is definite, I will let all of you know."

What that means is it looks like I'm in the clear and will be able to stay at Chatfield one more year!!! I am so excited, I could almost burst. God is good! At the end of next year, an English teacher is retiring from Chatfield, so that may mean I will be able to stay another year after next. And possibly even on a permanent contract.

I am hoping by the end of this week that I will have a final answer on my job. However, it has been reassuring to know I had a job at Columbine or Chatfield no matter what, which has made my spring semester so much less stressful than last year.