Politics

I am upset.  Not like stressed upset.  Or "I need to vent up set".  But like just deep down "this shit ain't cool" upset.

Today, was Molly's last day.  She was a long-term sub in our classroom and she was fantastic.  She'd been there for a month already by the time I got there.  She was passionate about the kids, was always reading up on autism, and is toying with the idea of going back to school to study it.  She was so committed and interested in really bettering these kids lives; I looked up to her for that.  And I aspired to have the same passion and gentle demeanor that she did.

She was also the kind of person that you knew you could depend on.  If some kid needed extra attention from me, I knew I could trust her to pick up the slack.  Or if something went down, she'd be there to support you.  She'd stay late to talk about what happened over the day, what strategies worked, and what we could do differently.

Not only was she super passionate and dependable, but she had a connection to the kids. There were some really harsh behaviors that she could totally subvert with a smile, a song, or a hug.  The kids loved her.  When they realize tomorrow that she isn't coming back, they are going to lose their shit.

That's the thing, we only found out yesterday that the district decided they were cutting her loose.  She's been filling in for somebody that's been on administrative leave since October.  The staff at the school was under the impression that he was gone for good; they were just waiting for all the paperwork to go through so they could hire her.  Then they told us yesterday that he's back and Molly's out.  Which isn't fair.  It isn't fair to the staff.  It isn't fair to the administration that tried find someone new.  But most of all, it isn't fair to the kids.  These kids (and all kids) need routine and dependable adult role models.  If the adults in their lives keep changing, it's all going to feel incredibly unstable and scary.  They won't know what to expect, or what's expected of them.  They won't know who to trust or who's going to be there tomorrow.  A revolving door of subs had been coming through that classroom for months before I got there.  It finally stabilized when I arrived, and now because the fucking "district" doesn't know what's going on in the damn classroom, just what's going on in the damn paperwork, they are going to take all that stability and throw it out the fucking window.

To be honest, it's fucking with my sense of stability.  Or lack therein.  And I think that's part of the reason why it makes me so upset.  Stability has been hard to come by out here in California.  And I just want a little bit of it. I wanted more time to get to know Molly.  She is soft-spoken, and we don't connect on a lot of levels, but she was a great person, around my age, and I really wanted to get to know her.  I wanted the chance to become friends with her, and that was gonna take more time.  But now she's gone and it's fucking with my professional and personal development.

If shit ain't broke, don't break it.