I may have been a bit premature in my celebrating...

...the end of the school year. Although Friday was supposed to be our last day, we still had to work today, and then tomorrow. That's to make up for the 2 snow days we had in February.

Now, the kids already made up their 2 days. They made one up almost immediately in February. We were supposed to have professional development day on Lincoln's birthday, which meant the kids were supposed to be off, but they canceled that and made the kids come to school. Ok, that kinda makes sense. However, guess when the 2nd day was made up. Go 'head, guess. Um...yeah...it was last Wednesday!!!! Please, someone explain to me what instruction was being made up the day before school got out for the summer. You know what was accomplished that day? Well, let's see, they cleaned out their desks, they washed their desks and chairs, the helped me purge the room of tons of garbage, they organized the manipulatives, I think you get the idea. There was NO instruction taking place. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either. All I know it that Wednesday was also supposed to be a professional development day. It was supposed to be the day for us to complete our records, and finish getting our rooms packed up. Instead, we had to babysit. AND, on top of all that, instead of being finished on Friday, we had to continue our school year into this week!

I think the whole thing is just ridiculous. First of all, we went for 12 years without using a snow day. Secondly, we supposedly have 5 snow days built into our calendar, so WTF?! Finally, what pisses me off the most is that, although they paid us for those 2 days, they paid us out of our banked summer money. I don't know if I've ever explained our pay system before (so I apologize if I already have) but basically they take money out of every check during the school year, then bank it (and, of course, earn interest on OUR money!!) to pay us during the summer. So, we ALREADY EARNED the money they paid us with. So, please, explain to me why we have to work 2 more days to 'earn' the money back that we ALREADY EARNED! I would have rather gone 2 days without pay over the summer.

Oh, and on top of Monday and Tuesday being make up days for us, New Principal decided that we need to work Wednesday and Thursday, too. Although she can't 'make' us work those days, she put right on our agenda that those days are "STRONGLY SUGGESTED." (Next to Monday and Tuesday it said "MANDATORY.") She made the statement during a meeting last week that those people who couldn't be bother to show up should basically look for another job because they obviously aren't committed to the Hell-Hole. So our already short 6 week summer break has now been cut to 5 weeks. Oh, AND, in that same meeting, she told us that she expects us to come in 1 week in July to work on planning for next school year. So, we're down to 4 weeks.

Now, trust me, I know some of you are thinking, "Quit yer bitchin'! You get FOUR weeks off!" (Well, some of you non-teachers are thinking that. My teacher buddies get it!) But, most of you know how unbelievably stressful this year has been for me. Well, actually, maybe you don't since I REALLY held back from bitching about it here. Regardless, you know that I really need some down time. I'm fairly certain that 4 weeks just isn't going to cut it.

I know this probably sounds ridiculous, but I still feel like I haven't recovered from not getting one single day off LAST summer, and going straight from one school, to summer school, to the next school year, all while trying to move 10 years of "stuff" from one classroom to another (right across the damn hall, by the way!!) I really needed this summer to rest and regroup.

If you're suddenly thinking, "What the hell, ChiTown, I thought you were quitting!?" you're going to have to come back tomorrow for the update. I meant to post about it over the weekend, but I was too busy trying to enjoy myself, and celebrate my awesome Daddy! Until next time...