Three Buildings in Two Months...

 

        When I was in my 20's I would hop jobs every six months.

       With the exception of B. Dalton Bookseller, but even that was broken up. Southwest Plaza for about two years, then Green Mtn for a year before I moved to Houston. Then Seabrook for a year, quit to go to Hastings Records, then bounced back over...that sort of thing.

        Teaching at Littleton High School for 17 years was my longest stretch at one gig. When that ended and I hopped to Hinkley I figured I'd die there. Double entendre and subtext intended for those who know.

        This summer, after four years (my time at Hink) of talking about leaving education, I finally said "This is gonna be my last year" outloud to Jim. I had been busted down to 1/2 theatre and 1/2 lang arts regardless of the cornucopia of support and blood, sweat and tears I had put in to get the department back up to speed. This was irrelevant to admin, as my classes weren't "big" enough to justify.  Largely because my lists of students requesting my classes were under 20 and mysteriously disappeared, which meant they didn't exist and nobody wanted theatre. Theatre is very specific and when it is used as a dumping ground, problems ensue. Like students dumped in the class are eventually asked to perform, and they bail. I'm not choir,  you can't hide in a section. I'm not band, you cannot hide behind an instrument, or put on headphones to learn piano "alone" but in a class. At some point, in some capacity, you are going to have to participate with other humans in theatre.

        I can't fight any more. So I said "This is it."

        Now, I could have let my co teacher continue to do all the heavy lifting in lang arts, continued to allow nothing but original scenes in Spanish  in intro and pulled APA through more intensive script analysis and schools of thought. But no, I believed a colleague in another building when he reached out and said the middle school wanted theatre.

        OK, full time theatre.

        In a middle school.

        In Aurora.

        So I skipped. 

        To be clear "Full Time Theatre" in the same district meant No Pay Cut. Sounded like a good idea.

         Skipping forward, three weeks later I was sitting in my new theatre at Kennedy High School in DPS.

        New district. Full time theatre. Dark for three years. A rebuild.

        Massive Pay cut.

        23 Minutes from home.

        My first day, some kids snuck into the theatre to ditch. I asked them to leave.

        They left.

        Nobody called me a bitch. Nobody told me to fuck off.

        My first day at Hinkley I was told to fuck off twice in twenty minutes by students who were asked to please sit down.

        At North, I was ignored completely and tables were flipped over.

        I'll keep y'all posted, but so far...