Dear Uncle Bob,

It took my breath away yesterday when my dad texted me and told me you passed away.

It was so sudden. I knew you were on the older side (heck, everyone at The Chapter was old enough to be one of my parents) but I never would have imagined you would have passed away before my wedding.

Before the news, I'd been contemplating adding you and Margaret to the A-List, as you were two of my only coworkers who, in my past life, made a desk job...bearable.

Thanks for humoring my selfie the first time I left ACNSC in March 2014.

I will never forget the year and a half when I shared an office with you. Well, it was more like a copy room with a desk (yours) and a shelving unit/counter space turned into a desk-like structure (mine).

In between our strenuous spurts of work, we spent hours discussing travel, adding to our own blogs (mine for work--most of the time, yours for fun). You told me about travels to England during the holidays and summer/fall motorcycle trips across the United States.

You are the first person I ever met who made conventionally "strange" places into staple stops on your journeys--places like universities and cemeteries. In sharing this, you awakened a love of travel within myself that I had never sensed before.

When I left my part time position at The Chapter so I could focus on school, I dreaded that I would not get to see you on a weekly basis. When you and Margarette came to take me out to Lolo's for lunch between classes one day in the fall semester my senior, I was SO EXCITED to see you two, and couldn't believe how nothing had seemed to change.

Ultimately, I returned to The Chapter full time after graduating, and was disappointed that I was given my own office instead of being "forced" to share a space with you again. Nevertheless, you made sure to come and visit my coat-closet office every day during that bleak hour after lunch when my food was digesting and my brain was thinking about travel--and we talked, and talked, and talked (which was awful for productivity and everyone knew it, but hey--I'm pretty sure a study somewhere says that strong workplace relationships foster positive feelings toward work, so we were doing that!)

Finally, it was after you were "let go" around Christmas 2015 that I realized how unfulfilling a desk job truly was--how spending hours staring at a computer screen in an office was not taking me where I wanted to go in life. My dreaming conspirator, Diet Coke in hand, had left me--and I was left with four cold, white walls, two computer monitors, and nobody to laugh with.

Life has certainly changed a lot since then. I'm a teacher, and I finally feel fulfilled by my job. I think the last time I saw you was on an afternoon when I dropped in to visit all our old coworkers, and you were surprisingly there, dropping off some TSS paperwork for your contract job you still held with them.

I want to say "I wish I kept in touch," or "I wish I had lunch with you and Margarette more often" but I also know if you were here, you would scoff and say something like "Bygones are bygones. Go take a road trip or something."

Thank you for being my work dad. It was an honor sharing an office and tales of adventure with you.

Rest in peace.

Thoughts on Education

A new teacher at my school quit this week. At the staff meeting last Friday, we REJOICED because he was actually fully certified to teach AND had years of experience...then this week, he quit.

I'm sure we could all speculate as to why he left (maybe he was already burned out, maybe he held unrealistic expectations, maybe he was dealing with extraneous issues that bled into his work life...) but this teacher's departure is just ONE symptom of a much larger issue.

Teachers are exiting the profession in droves, leaving students in classrooms with a different sub every day, under-qualified long term substitutes ill equipped to teach algebra or biology, or emergency or intern certified teachers trying to find their footing while balancing graduate school or certification courses.

Granted, I have very few reserves against throwing an emergency certified teacher or intern certified teacher in a classroom when the only other option is a substitute teacher. (Full disclosure, I am an intern certified teacher.) However, in the long run, putting untrained and in-training teachers in the classroom is a band-aid solution for the gaping wound that is the teacher shortage faced in America, let alone Arizona.


Alternate preparation programs like Teach for America, New York City Teaching Fellows and TNTP Teaching Fellows are great, but teachers don't always stay in the classroom after their commitment expires. Many find the pay unacceptable and leave. Many see bigger and brighter things in their future (like med or law school) and leave. Many face burnout within two years due to a lack of school support--and they leave.

So what is the answer? That's a trick question.

There isn't one answer. There is a slew of answers. The real question is "Which solutions work best together and get at the true root of the issue?

For starters...

Pay us. Pay public school teachers more. We shouldn't have to find a second or summer job to help us pay a $1200/month mortgage payment when school isn't in session.

Support us. Have our backs when it comes to finicky parents. Do what it takes to sustain a positive workplace environment--be that monthly potlucks, staff spirit weeks, or exciting professional developments. Better yet, allow public school teachers to grow by sending us to intriguing professional developments and providing subs for our classes.

Stock our classrooms. Make sure the Senior English teachers don't have to arm wrestle over who gets to borrow and read the class set of The Bell Jar with their kids. Make sure there are enough textbooks to go around. Better yet, stock public schools with textbooks that are up to date and include Obama's presidency--not the textbooks I used in high school.

Granted, a lot of this goes back to money. In fact, all of this--teacher pay, professional development, classroom supplies--is linked to money. So perhaps the issue truly stems back to, you guessed it, politics.

In Arizona, I'm sure teachers would be elated to receive the same pay raise Governor Doug Ducey gave to many of his staff in 2017, while teachers received approximately a 1% raise.

I am so blessed to say that my district is supportive. We have an education association representative who relentlessly requests raises for teachers. Through my district, I have received training, room and board for the Advanced Placement class I teach, and we have more than a modest amount of books available to read with our students, either on campus or via inter-district loan system. I'm not saying my district is perfect, but I am certainly grateful Teach for America placed me here. I intend to stay much longer than my two year commitment--but what about all of the teachers who don't feel as blessed as I do?

I am one teacher who plans to stay in the classroom for a long time. What can be done to replicate me?