Back in the Saddle Again

First of all, you have to understand that I'm unhappy to be returning to the same district where I have been teaching the past 7 years. I applied to two districts last spring; I know that isn't very many, but I was so sure I'd get a job at one of them. One of the districts I applied to was my former school district, and what with my experience and success the past few years with a more diverse community, I thought for sure they'd want to hire me back, especially at one of the three more diverse and challenging elementaries. The other district I applied to is about the same ecomonic community as the one I am currently teaching in, they just pay better, are a smaller district, and offer some of the same things my former district offered, such as total TRI pay (sorry for the teacher lingo) as well as weekly late starts for teams to plan. And no morning duty. God. I hate morning duty. More on that later... Anyway, so last year after school ended, I spent two and a half days packing up my room completely. I wanted to be ready at a moment's notice to load up and go to a new school. How depressing it has been to return to my same pathetically old building and room and unpack everything that took me so long to pack up in June. It feels like I'm a failure. I'm bummed to be back at my school, and worse, the only other teacher in my wing that was my age moved to another school in my district. The replacement they hired is a sweet, young, blond gal. In my wing are thre young blonds. Hmmm...No one my age. I'm the old brunette. But even though I was not happy to return to my school, many teachers came up to me on my first day back, giving me hugs and saying they were happy I was back. Why? They like me as a union rep! So I'm glad someone's happy. So before school even started I was already getting unhappy emails from teachers about things Mr. Principal was doing. 1. Mr. Principal sent a welcome back letter to staff. In the letter he said that we were welcome to return to school to set up our room any time after August 20. However, in our contract, it is stated that we can return any time after August 15. Because of how the days of the week fell, that was only the difference of two work days, but still. He can't ignore the contract. Several emails later, and he was told this by KEA. He blamed this on the custodial staff, who weren't quite done with all of the classroom carpets. So, how is this our problem? It is not. Also, what did they do all summer long if the carpets are ready less than two weeks before school is to begin? But score one for teachers who got to go in before 8/20. 2. Our first two days of Staff Inservice were August 27th and 28th, as our first day of school was August 30th (I think it is criminal to begin school while it is still August). In our Welcome Back email, Mr. Principal said that our days would start at 8 am. Now, our regular contracted day begins at 8:30 am, because the student day begins at 9:30 am. Mr. Principal has tried to do this before where he will put a start time for an inservice day a half hour earlier than normal. While most staff don't care, those with small kids and regular child care issues do. I got many unhappy emails again from staff, saying an 8 am start presented a hardship. I sent an email to Mr. Principal asking why we were beginning at 8 am instead of 8:0 am. The response I got was that the district had set the times. So I then emailed Ms. Union President to ask if this was true. Her response was not satisfying; apparently the union had made a deal with the district to provide some training one afternoon to teachers who couldn't or wouldn't attend a summer training. In return, the district said that on the day you had the afternoon training, the day would start at 8 am. It wasn't communicated to union reps like it should have been. Still, it sounded like just that one day, not both, should begin at 8 am. So I emailed Mr. Principal again, inquiring further about our start time the first day. He said I could take a poll from teachers, which I did. Most teachers did not care about the start time, but there were more who specifically said that they prefered an 8:30 am start to an 8 am start. Did Mr. Principal change it? No, he did not. He said there wasn't time. So, score one for Mr. Principal.