Making Waves

The district has upgraded me to a full time teaching schedule for next year. I'll be teaching more programming and technology classes, which I'm excited about. I can definitely see the Business department changing direction since I replaced our previous Marketing teacher. We're moving more toward a Business focus and away from a Marketing focus:

• Our School Store program is being reduced.
• Our Sales and School Store Seminar classes have been cut.
• Our OJT program has been cut.
• We added a new Web Site Design course for 2009-2010
• We'll be adding an AP Computer Science course for 2010-2011
• Our DECA program continues its strong growth.

Overall, I like the new direction we're going. Almost all of these changes are a direct result of me, a more business-oriented person, being in the building instead of last year's teacher, who was much more of a marketing-oriented person. I personally advocated and/or introduced most of these changes myself.


My Last Job

I spoke to my friend who took the job I held at a rural high school last year. He informed me that his position has been reduced to a part-time gig because the district has decided to cut the OJT program there. That program was managed by the same exceptional teacher for 10 years in a row. Then I came in and took it over for a year, and now my friend is running it. He's currently looking for another job.

So I've only been a professional educator for two years, but I've already made or contributed to important and lasting changes at two separate school districts. When you enter the teaching profession, you assume large responsibilities. What you do in your school can have widespread systemic effects.