Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Bittersweet

As the year is coming to a close, half of me is so happy to be getting ready to put this place behind me. The other half is sad to go. I have made good friends here. Miss Meanie is evil and I hope I never have to see her again, but many of my colleagues were awesome.

The kids were awesome too. Even when they were wreaking havoc.

Today I had to break the news to Persius that I won't be back next year. Persius is still upset that I haven't been able to run the academic groups since January (because I suddenly became the full time behavior teacher) and he asks me about it every time he sees me. "Miss Butterfly, I just have one question," he'll say. "When are you coming back to teach us?" Usually I've just replied, "I don't know, buddy," or "It's not up to me," because I was still holding out hope that they'd let me go back to my academic teaching duties and hire an actual behavior teacher. When I told Persius before that it wasn't up to me, he marched to the principal's office and demanded to know if he had made that decision. (He hadn't. It was Miss Meanie.)

So today I went into the academic room to get a stapler, and Persius was in there doing his reading group. When he saw me he asked me, "Will you come back and be our teacher next year?"

I'd been dreading telling him this. I sat down next to him and said, "I'm going to be teaching at a different school next year."

He jumped into my arms like a little kid and hugged me, rocking back and forth, saying, "But I don't want you to go! Why do you have to go?"

I didn't know how to explain it to him except to say, "I just have to." I tried to tell him, "But you can write me a letter if you want, and if you give it to any of the other teachers here, they can mail it to me."

"And can you come over to my house? Everyone I like is going to come over in the summer!"

I kept on telling Persius that I wouldn't be too far away, and that all the other people he liked would still be there next school year, and eventually convinced him that everything would be okay.

Tomorrow I have to tell the little kids, which should go over a little easier... they'll be sad but their attention spans are significantly shorter and they'll be more excited about summer break. I'm not even going to tell Ruddy until over the summer... he's going to be at Rec Camp with me, so that will give me some extra time to break the news to him slowly.

Which brings us to the good news... I got a new teaching job! I will be an Adaptive Classroom teacher! The elementary school I'll teach at is only a few minutes from my house. I'm so excited about it... it is a fresh new start.

I just wish I could bring Persius and Ruddy with me!

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