Since the first of February this year, as the anxiety about the budget shortages in California rose to an uproar, teachers everywhere in the state, temporary status or not, worried and worried some more in the lunch room, on the playground, in the car, during dinner at home.

In my modest suburban district, fifteen teachers were advised about possible layoffs at staff meetings, which would mean that 400-450 students wouldn’t have a teacher in the Fall.  That’s a lot of students crammed into other classes (right now the ratio is 20 to 1 in the primary grades, 32 to 1 in the upper grades) in a district with only six elementary sites, about 450 students per site.  The teachers for an entire school-gone.

The human resource department in a California school district is mandated to inform employees who may be laid off by March 13 of the current year and, sure enough, as a new teacher I received by certified mail a formal letter on cream colored school district stationery detailing my preliminary layoff notice, i.e., the dreaded ‘pink slip,’ also known as the reduction in force (RIF) notice.

In the meantime, I lead my fourth graders in their study of the California Gold Rush.  They loved it.  We took a field trip to the nearest nature conservancy site, organized by volunteer docents who know as much about the flora and fauna of the area as the most experienced botanists and zoologists at the two major universities in the Bay Area.  In fact, many docents are probably retired professors.  The students have been learning to ‘be writers’ in order to pass the state writing exam that all fourth graders must take.  They geared up for the famous state exams that determine whether or not the school has made its NCLB benchmark.  All that and more, as any teacher knows, while I waited to hear if I was going to teach again in the Fall.

In the middle of April, just as I could no longer stand the suspense and sat at the computer to email the human resources supervisor, an email from him popped up.  Nothing has changed in the state budget mess, as anyone knows from the results of the special election, although the district administration may have received notice about the federal stimulus funds accorded to our modest district, but I was assigned to the same school for next year after all, as a second year employee.  What a relief.  Last night at Open House I could smile and enjoy the children and their parents, no anxiety to cloud the evening.

I’m happy that I won’t have to spend the summer at the local unemployment office-and, believe me, the unemployment office is happy they won’t have to look at me every week.