This summer, my husband and I moved from Elk Grove, CA to Northport, Maine. I started looking for a place to teach in Maine in the Spring. It took a while, but stopping in a district office on a whim, I found a teaching position at Camden Hills Regional High School. It's a small school that serves five towns in the mid-coast Maine area.
We just couldn't stay in California anymore.
I grew up in Elk Grove. I came back when my daughter started 7th grade. I came back to give her a positive secondary school experience and to teach in a district that had a reputation of honoring teachers and seeking out the best practices in teaching. I wanted to move forward in my career and in my practice. I never was one of those teachers who thought that being an administrator was the way up the career ladder. My thought has always been, I want to be the best teacher I can be.
Thirteen years later, the daughter is about to graduate from college and I have become a discouraged educator. My state government has abandoned education as a priority. I listen again and again to politicians who will not compromise and work together. I sit at board meetings and listen to School Board members who really have no idea what to do and how to proceed in this climate. They are being led by district administration who also has no idea what to do, but has chosen to lash out at teachers to make themselves look better. There is little compromise and little real work toward lasting, positive outcomes.
And yet, pockets of marvelous teaching continues in EGUSD schools. People of this community have no idea how long and how deep this recession has cut education because the teachers have not really let on that there was a problem until very recently. I will miss working with so many of you!
However, it was time for a change. We left Elk Grove to work in a positive place where state government honors education.
So, goodbye Elk Grove Patch! If you are interested in what I am doing now, you can follow me on goldenkidsgoeast.blogspot.com.
Thank you for the positive discourse. Keep up the conversations.
Yours Truly,
Lisa
