Job interview!

I'll bet YOU shed a few tears when you dropped Wyatt off, never mind the baby!  But at least that "first day" is out of the way now, and hopefully all the other 'firsts" will be easier. 

Good for Nikki on even GETTING the interview.  There are SOOO many respondants to every ad, that the chances of even getting an interview are quite small.  She must have impressed them.  Here's hoping she's not up against any really big guns, altho many places seem to be favoring less experienced hires, knowing they can pay them less, and that the "new kids" are often willing to bend over backwards.

I'm hoping here that Rae's strike is over by this weekend, for the sake of EVERYONE involved.  She had to "call off" picketing yesterday.  Three days in the sun both picketing and rallying --from 6:30am till at least 5pm-- left her with, I think, a touch of heat exhaustion.  She did get burned, and when she got up yesterday, she was dizzy, felt confused, had a splitting migrane and vomiting.  When she didn't feel better after an hour, she called off and when back to bed--and slept another 6 hours! 

Stress is part of it also, I'm sure.  One of the issues the union is working on, which is close to her, is class size.  Right now, the contract says class size is limited to 32.  HOWEVER, schools have gotten around that by "averaging" class size.  So, she has 37 or 38 kids in 6 of her classes, but her AP class has only 22.  Ergo, the AVERAGE is 32.5.  Never mind that she only has table space for 32.  Or that this is ART, not lecture.  Or that kids are sitting on the radiators, and on the floor, trying to work on projects.  NOW, factor in the new demands about judging teachers on the performance of their students, and tell me just how this is fair to the teachers???

37 is a lot of students.  That's how it was back when I was in elementary school--a Catholic one with generally well-behaved kids.  And Rae doesn't even have desk space for all of them?  That is bad.  I hope she is soon back at work, and that they can agree to give test results minimal, if any, weight in teacher evaluations. (Eugene Robinson had a good oped in the Washington  Post today.)

I was shocked to see about 12 portable classrooms outside a high school I passed yesterday.  I've seen 1-5 outside elementary schools, but I didn't ever notice them at the HSs. 

---------------------------

Rose, I hope Nicki gets the job with benes.  Sounds like Wyatt will do just fine at day care if he was happy at the end of his 2nd day. And it's a nice size--not as overwhelming as the 12-15 children in the non-home daycares.

(My sister was telling me about a home daycare around here that was licensed for up to 7 children, but the two women were caring for over 20--all age 4 and under.  Ouch!  We think it must have been one operated by immigrants, caring for children of other immigrants from that same country.  Otherwise the parents surely would have reported the violation sooner.)