Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Today is the "official" start to Matt's new job! I'm so proud of how hard he's worked and if you can get a promotion in education, this is it! After 10 years of teaching this is going to be quite a change! He's taken a job at his school as an Instructional Facilitator. It's not an easily defined roll, but he'll observe teachers and help/model instructional methods. He'll mentor new teachers and mentor National Board candidates. He'll be working on developing and implementing literacy cross-curriculum and be part of FPS literacy & math task forces. And, I think that's just the tip of it. He'll be working an extra 5 weeks a year -- more at christmas & spring break & summers since this is an administrative roll.

If you want to hear the long story on how this happened keep reading. I'm mostly writing it so I'll remember, but don't mind to share it with you.

Let me start at the beginning. Back in early May, we found out that the summer program that Matt's been working at up here had been cancelled. We were pretty bummed because it paid really well and gave us the freedom to do some extra stuff during the year. After talking about options for him teaching summer school, working other programs, etc. what we both decided was that we really just needed a break.

So, for the first time in 10 years, Matt was taking the summer off (or most of it -- he ended up doing a couple of weeks of extra professional development).

About this same time, Matt heard about a new position that was opening up in the district, one at his school. He talked to his principal about it and decided to apply. We waited to hear something. And, we waited. And waited. All this time we'd been praying that this would work out and had no reason to think it wouldn't. This job would be the perfect springboard for the type of job Matt would like someday. It would also come with a substantial pay raise that would allow us to do somethings we've been wanting to do. In our minds, it just seemed ideal.

I'll admit that as time went by and I kept praying for this "perfect" thing to happen, I just couldn't think WHY God wouldn't answer our prayers by letting this happen. By mid-July Matt had begun to prepare to teach next year.

Monday, July 18th -- I'd taken Madeleine to the library while Matt stayed home with the other 2 and started working on getting ready for his new prep (Algebra 2). I remember so well praying in the car on the way home and telling God I didn't know why He wouldn't answer our prayers. This was a perfect job for Matt. And, then, all of a sudden it hit me. He had answered it: His answer was NO. I realized that all this time, I'd been thinking He wasn't listening to me and instead he was patiently telling me "no" over and over. And, more importantly I realized that it's easy and tempting for me to think that a "NO" is a "I'm not listening."

So then and there, I changed my prayer. I started to pray for the strength to do this all again this year....the long hours grading/planning, the tight(er) budget, another year before we can explore a possible job-change into a leadership position. And, I quickly knew that we could do it and do it well!

But, I said Matt had a new job, right?

Well, we got home from the library. We had lunch and Matt kept on working/planning. After lunch, Matt gets a call from his principal. Not a big deal -- they talk often during the summer. But this call is different: the principal starts out by asking Matt if he still wants the Faciltator job? Matt says yes and he tells Matt to come on up to the school and they'll talk about it. What??!! Three hours later Matt returns home, having resigned from his current position and the paperwork being processed for his new one!

In hindsight, I can see how so much worked together perfectly for this to happen:
*The new job "unofficially" started asap, and yet we'd had a whole 6 weeks of family time. If Matt had taught summer school he wouldn't have even had 1 week off between jobs.

*Matt was worried about his teaching position being filled on such short notice. But, by shifting several teachers, it worked out perfectly -- with 2 teachers actually getting preps they'd been wanting for awhile.

*This job is actually going to give him more versatility than he'd imagined. He'll be working on literacy too and will have more than just math experience to bring to future jobs.

It's been a good summer. And, even if Matt hadn't gotten the job, it still would have been a good summer. That's what I needed to realize. And the lesson I've learned from all this will be with me forever.