So I told my seventh grade students that today would be my last day at the end of both classes.  I was stunned when virtually everyone was upset at the news.  There are many kids who I was building relationships with, and will miss a lot.  I'm especially sad about Zavien... I really believe he is balanced on the edge of knife.  A few wrong moves, and he may fall into oblivion in the school system.  I hope someone takes up my efforts to keep him moving forward.

Moving on to the high school level is not really scary.  Especially since I have so many relationships at Somerville High School already... But, I will miss some of the people here at McCormack.

Today, I'll be calling Nicole to talk about the Spring season.  I still don't know if I'll have enough time to coach the team this Spring, but I think I can do a couple of volunteer days to help out with land practices.  I hope this all works out as well as it might.

Well.  The bomb dropped.  The bad information I received about which license to pursue last year from Arthur Eisenkraft has become a problem, and submitted my resignation for Citizen Schools yesterday evening.

I'm really excited that I'll be starting at Somerville next Thursday, but it was a difficult thing to communicate to all the people here.

More news later, but I'm feeling a sense of relief.

It has been far too long since my last post, and I am not going to bother trying to fill in all the blanks.  I am feeling a high level of frsutration with the whole situation here.

My advisor at UMB told me that I would be fine with a Gen Science MTEL and license for graduating from the program.  Turns out, that was wrong.  He told me that I would never get a job teaching high school chemistry without a chemistry degree.  Several other people have told me he's wrong.  Unfortunately, I can't take another MTEL right now.  Unfortunately, I only have the Chem 8-12 license to fall back on now.

So, I'm in the wrong place, with a bunch of 12 year old kids that would like nothing more than for me to go, waiting to hear back from my one hope for the resolution of this mess: Karen Woods and Somerville High School.  Each time I open up my email, I fell like a little boy under the Christmas tree, wishing-hoping-praying that the package I truly want is there.

I do not know how to translate my success in coaching crew to this environment at DMC.  There are some good kids here.. some of them being held back by the 3-5 kids in every class who are disruptive, bratty, and aggressively opposed to doing anything that would further their education.  The challenge I am facing is that the constant disrespect is wearing thin.

At Somerville, the kids respect me and honor me.  It is the relationships forged through practices that are such a benefit.  Of course, there are going to be difficult cases - heavy hitters as they are known at DMC - and there are going to be disrespectful students at Somerville.  I do believe though, that having the support of a group of students will help earn the support and respect from most of the students.  Right now, I'm just struggling to even build relationships with students at McCormack.  In the end, it turns out I'm more than a little glad that my advisor was wrong.  But it would have been nice to find out about this sooner, and before I ever accepted this position at DMC.  I'm ready to go, but it is going to let down a lot of good poeple.

Will I hear back today?  Time for this is getting short.  Something needs to happen quick.