Stressful

Simple is the key to my ideal wedding. I really don't care about any of the "show" to weddings. I would be perfectly happy eloping and then throwing a party for friends and family.


Looking at our guest list, I have realized we have too much family :-P it really ruins the "small wedding" idea when you have about 70 people WITHOUT adding friends or relatives you never see.


We don't want to wait until next year. Obviously we've waited quite a while already. 6 years this May.  We just don't want the stress/fuss of the wedding. And we don't want anything fancy. So, our tentative plan is to have something small this summer. Probably just have family at the ceremony and then a completely casual party for everyone. I'm honestly not 100% sure I want a ceremony. I just feel like parents would be disappointed without one. We are thinking maybe early August but absolutely nothing is planned yet.



I start my long term subbing in a little under 2 months. I am excited and nervous. I am really hoping this gives me an in to a job next year. I need something more permanent/steady. I love subbing but it doesn't pay anything. I would love to have my own classroom. It is frustrating working in other people's rooms. Education has to cut $17 million for next year though. They are currently in negotiations. The government wants to cut 5% from teacher pay, which would save them ~$15.5 million. The superintendent has 6 "deputies", 3 of which don't appear to actually have any function. She is "thinking" about whether or not she should let one go but she isn't sure. The ridiculousness of all of this could fill a novel so I won't get started. They will not be hiring anyone for new positions. They will only be replacing lost teachers. My hopes aren't high for getting a job :-(


I am also almost getting too many sub jobs right now. I have 5 SpEd teachers that tend to have overlapping meetings and "race" to ask me for the days. Thursday, Kristi asked me to sub for her on the 13th, when I said yes she responded, "Awesome! I won!" which was shortly followed by messages from the other 2 SpEd teachers in that school asking for the same day and saying, "Damnit! She beat me!" And the principal at the school where I will be a long-term has started asking me for days to come in for everything: IEPs, grade level, SpEd, RR, shadowing Amber, and even specials.


This is actually a problem. It is actually not a 100% good thing to be a loved sub in A2. There is technically a rule with A2 school district that a teacher sub can only work 140 calendar days in a year. They don't tell any of the subs about this! You only find out when you can't work anymore! This is not enough days to work the entire school year. Even if you only work a 1/2 day job, it still counts as a full day. Luckily, I started taking jobs for the TAs in the SpEd classes where I sub regularly and I also subbed in a near by district in the beginning of the year. TA jobs don't count toward your total. If I had not done this, I would not have enough days to finish out the year, and I would not be allowed to long-term sub.


Why do they have this rule? Because the A2 school district did some super shady things in the 90s that ended in a lawsuit in '95. The short story: they were hiring subs to fill teaching positions the whole year instead of hiring them as teachers. Keeping them at sub pay. Subs sued. The district lost. They had to back-pay for the settlement. Now, if a sub works 150 days in the district, they have to hire them full time. So, the district stops you at 140.


The twist! When they hired PESG to outsource subs in 2007, they technically freed themselves from this law. The subs are not hired by the district anymore so they don't have any legal responsibility to the hiring. The other 4 districts in the area dropped the rule. A2 is paranoid and still follows it strictly.


Also, they won't tell you how many days you have worked/have left! Both the principal and I talked to HR about my days. Their response was, "I think you should be fine. We are keeping track of it so you don't have to worry about it. You should be fine but we will let you know if you get close." The principal was, naturally, pissed by this response. We absolutely DO need to worry about it. Especially if you "think" I "should be" ok. So I had to go through all my old jobs and total them up. By the end of the year, I will reach about 130 as a teacher. Very close. I am so lucky I worked other jobs too.