Trimmed.

Trimmed:

1 (verb) – to make something neat or to the required size by cutting away irregular or unwanted parts.

*I stole almost this entire blog post from my fellow TFA colleague Ms.D. We are both being trimmed from the same school, and moved to the same new schools... essentially, her story is my story.*Credit is hers*

As most people who would ever click to this blog know, I am a teacher. I am a current Teach for America corps member and am two weeks into my first year of full-time, public school teaching (fourth grade) in an urban district. I can truly say that I have never known more joy than working with my sixteen nine- and ten-year-old kiddos who tell me daily that they love me and they like a good challenge and hard work is important because getting ready for college starts now. 

Yesterday, at an emergency staff meeting, my entire school team was informed that because of historically low enrollment and the ever-present problems of budgets and allocations, my school would be ‘trimming’ two teachers. When it’s presented in this manner, trimming mostly reads: ‘firing,’ but that really is not the case. Trimming translates directly as ‘relocating’ – because if the kiddos didn’t enroll in my school, they must have enrolled somewhere else. So, the teachers whose classrooms are quite small are relocated to a school where a teacher may have 30 or 40 students in one room and then those students are able to be dispersed between teachers. It is common knowledge for any person who has circumvented the public education system that a smaller class size directly correlates to better performance, more teacher attention for each student, and most importantly – more academic growth in a given span of time. Trimming is necessary. It provides an extra set of hands in a school where a teacher may be trying to educate 42 students in a classroom designed to house 24, and in the case of many urban districts, with a glaring lack of funds or resources. Trimming ensures that all, or at least as many as possible, students receive a fair and equal opportunity to engage in learning in a reasonably populated classroom.

It is unfortunate that in the world of allocations and budget provisions, there is little way to project how many teachers might be needed at a given school, especially in urban districts where families may be transient between apartments or rental homes, and so these trims often happen after a school has been in session for a couple of weeks – enough time for a district to realize the disproportionate allocation of teachers. It is unfortunate that students can not always count on their same teacher being with them for the duration of a year. It is unfortunate that there is no reliable or perfect way to go about trimming and it is always uncomfortable and truly sad for all parties involved. It is unfortunate that I was trimmed from my school yesterday and will be relocating to a new school, only two weeks after meeting and becoming invested in my nineteen precious kiddos.

Ms. Hansen’s fourth grade will be no more and I will be moving on to Ms. Hansen's fifth grade at a school on the other side of town. I am up for the challenge of having two first days of school in one year, and I am highly invested in serving students – no matter where that may be. My number one goal will always be to serve students and help show them doors and windows and little teeny slivers of opportunity they may have otherwise not seen. I am absolutely not sad about the opportunity to serve students who need a teacher.  That being said, I am absolutely devastated to be leaving my classroom, where I have begun to know these 16 little minds and see their many strengths and identify their needs and partner with their families. I am crushed that I will not be able to round out my first year with my kids, my team, and my principal. I am heartbroken that I will not get to share in this year with them. My many, many teacher friends (love you all) can understand how truly sad I am feeling today.

Good thoughts and positive energy are much appreciated, as I will spend the next two days breaking the news to my students (devastating, there will be tears shed), taking down my room, and preparing for a whole new curriculum. Early next week I will be allocated a couple of days to get my room ready in my new building and by next Thursday I will be Ms. Hansen, the fifth grade teacher.

I prepped my kids today by making sure that they understood that they aren't just working hard because I am their teacher, but they will work hard no matter what classroom they are in, or who their teacher is. Granted, they have no idea how soon my position as their teacher will end. 

I've tried really hard to be positive and professional in this transition. I am truly excited for the opportunity, the challenge. If I can pick up and move to a random state, random city, random school, random grade... I certainly can make one more random move. I just get so sad when I think about leaving my kiddos. I've met with parents, wiped tears, set goals, silenced doubts... and then today I had to sit down with the other 4th grade teachers and divide my students into their classes. That's painful. I want to take care of them; I want to keep them. They are mine.