The contract

For my birthday, I signed my contract for next year and delivered it to my principal.  This is the first time since I began working as an educator (let’s see, that was when Wendy was in first grade and now she’s in the 15^th grade so you do the math), that I have been asked to return to a school to do the same job before the current school year ended.  When I was an elementary “non-certified but doing the work of a certified” librarian (see, I’m not bitter), I had to wait every year until August to be rehired with only a vague promise from the Maplewood principal that the call would eventually come.  The call always did but it didn’t make up for a spring and summer of anxious waiting.  For three years I did this, for a part time job!  When I told the principal there that I was going to grad school and wouldn’t be back the next school year, he kind of grimaced and said, “Too bad, this was the year we were going to bump you up to full time.”  Just my luck.

This year, I did waver a little.  I made pro/con lists lying in bed listening to the wind gust, wondering if the power would go out.  I weighed the great paycheck against the unreliable internet.  I thought about my friends and family.  Seeing them had become a major endeavor, involving the thing I hate most in the world (see: little tiny planes) and if, god forbid, there was a major emergency I was at minimum ten hours away.

But one major thing was that I wasn’t offered a contract right away.  Colynn casually mentioned that she had signed hers one day during our daily chat in the morning.  I tried not to read too much into it, but as more and more of my colleagues got offers, and my neighbor was blatantly begged by the superintendent to stay (she isn’t), I started to panic.  The teacher who planned on leaving told me I should march right in and demand to know why I wasn’t given a contract.  But, after all these years pining away, I wasn’t going to grovel, or even question it.  If they didn’t want me, then so be it.  I would take it as a sign that this was meant to be a one year adventure of a lifetime.  I could walk away with my head held high, knowing I had done a good job, that I had made a positive impact on my students, putting aside the knowledge that they would go through the same abandonment issues that is part of living in the bush for them; teachers leave.  That is a fact of life.

The thing is, I did want to stay.  But I wanted to be asked to stay, not have to ask for it.  I have long known that I have too much pride for my own good but for once, I wanted to be courted a bit.  I wanted to be wooed.  I didn’t want to be cast aside for some unknown mystery teacher who would come in and take my place, and I didn’t think it was too much to want someone to say, “Hey, we would like you to return.”

In the end, I didn’t get exactly what I wanted.  There were no roses and champagne, just an email from the superintendent asking that I acknowledge the receipt of the offer enclosed.  I did but then waited over three weeks so I could give my answer on my birthday as the best gift I ever gave myself.  A job.