Grateful & Lucky

These past weeks I have been thinking a lot about how grateful I am, how truly grateful I am. In no particular order- I have a wonderful family. We are all relatively healthy. I have a home that is comfortable and warm. We have the money we need to pay the bills. I have friends that care about me. I have a job that I love. I live in a country in which freedom of speech is a right. I live in a technological time and have a pretty "comfortable" life compared to my ancestors.

It is easy to forget how lucky a person is when something upsets the normal routine. Recently a person I don't know well had her husband die unexpectedly. Another person I network with, lost her mother. I cannot imagine either of their losses. I would imagine the death almost like a hole in ones heart. Our son recently had a health crisis but fortunately he is going to be ok with the drug therapy that our health insurance will cover. I am relieved and grateful that we have insurance, good insurance. The costs of the tests that he took, the doctors that looked at the results and the drugs that he is on, would have been a huge financial burden on us that I hope never to experience.

Like so many school districts in the United States, the one that I work for is losing students. The way that the public funding is calculated is based in part on the enrollment numbers. We have had the privilege and luxury these past 8 years of having the state and the district support low class sizes with SAGE funding. One teacher to 15 students is the ratio in kindergarten to 3rd grade for reading and math. This gives the youngest of students an opportunity to get a great start in their formal education. I returned to the classroom after a 10 year hiatus from raising my own children. I was so happy to get hired to teach kindergarten during the expansion to all-day kindergarten and SAGE classes that our district embraced. After 2 quick years I was asked to move to the technology computer teaching position. I have been teaching k-2 ever since and love it!

I may or may not have a teaching job in the future. The district is facing budget cuts. A primary computer technology teacher is not a mandated class that a district has to have. I would hope that I could move back to teaching kindergarten if that were to happen. I have never taught another grade and don't feel qualified to do so. If the district wants to restructure and decides that SAGE is not necessary and that budget woes can be solved by increasing class sizes, then the laying off of many teachers will happen. I hope with all of my body that this does not happen. I know that life changes and curve balls come at you fast. I will tell my readers this, " I am lucky to have a job." I don't take it for granted. I love working for my school district and touching the lives of the students in positive ways. I hope that in my future I can keep being employed as a teacher in whatever capacity the district chooses.