Problem Solved

As a private school we utilize the public schools bus routes. We have three bus routes that each have about twenty students that ride them. Our students are the first ones picked up and dropped off both in the morning before school and in the afternoon after school. In the morning there is a teacher on duty to supervise the bus students because they arrive earlier than the other students are allowed to arrive. After school there is a teacher who gets the students on to the bus and checking them off for safety reasons. I was, am, one of those teachers who was in charge of the bus duty after school. What I had to do was to check the students off on the corresponding bus sheets. Make sure that all the students that are supposed to be on the bus get on the correct bus. The problem is that the bus company was putting pressure on our principal and her in turn putting pressure on the teachers in charge of bus duty to get the students out and on the buses earlier because they were running late for their public school routes.

The principal started to help with getting the busses loaded. As the students were walking out the door she would yell out the names of the students and the teacher doing the bus duty would flip through the three pages of buses and find the students to check them off. This helped the students to get on the bus faster but the lists were not accurate because there were too many students running past and names being called out to get everyone. At faculty meetings it was discussed changing the time school starts or gets out in order to accommodate the bus students and bus company’s schedule.

I talked to one of the other teachers who does bus duty and we talked about why it was so hard to get the students out and on the buses in a timely manner (or by the time the buses needed to leave.) The biggest problem was flipping through the different pages to find the students on each bus. It was nearly impossible for someone new to it and still very difficult for those who knew which student got on which bus. We sat down together and put all the separate pages of bus lists on to one page. Instead of having to flip through pages all of the students are on one list. By doing this we save at least 5-10 minutes getting the buses loaded.

Life is full of complex problems ...

I really like what I do for a living, I love my job. I just wish that I was earning a living doing it. Teachers in general do not make the money that they deserve, but private school teachers earn even less than the average public school teachers do. (Read: I make next to nothing.) This, my friends, is a complex problem that I have been dealing with for the past four years.

The ideal solution to this problem would be to find a public school position similar to the one that I currently hold in the private school. This seems as though it would be any easy problem to solve, but as many of you know it is not easy finding a public school teaching position. (Or maybe it is and I am just doing something wrong.)

In the past I have tried different strategies. My first year I applied for any and all public schools within driving distance for any and all teaching positions that I thought I was the least bit qualified for. This seemed like a good strategy getting my information out to as many school districts as possible, but it unfortunately I was unable to find a public school job.

The next year I started going to job fairs and narrowing down the districts and positions that I applied to. I thought that the meeting face to face with districts letting them get to know me would be better than applying for a million positions online. This seemed like a good idea, but nothing really came of it.

The following year I did was even more specific about where I applied. I cleaned up my resume and spent more time on application essays. I ended up getting a couple interviews. I thought about how other people I knew were getting jobs and realized that the majority of them were getting jobs through networking.

This year I have worked on my resume even more and have started networking with other teachers. I have gained more experience and have joined professional groups. I am going to hopefully be finished with my masters program this summer and I will have then earned an advanced degree.

As much as I do I realize that there are a lot of people and circumstances that are involved in me getting my dream job. There have to be jobs to be had in the area and districts that I am interested in. Those districts and principals have to be interested in me as well.

I don’t think that this problem has been solved yet due to a lot of factors. At first I don’t think I was doing a very good job of searching and applying for jobs. I also did not have experience or any idea what I wanted. I didn’t have good contacts or good interview skills. I am working on all of these things and hope that my luck in finding my dream job turns around this year. Wish me luck!