That's Your Dirt In the Boss's Hole

This afternoon I was asked how I felt about working at a school where almost all the teachers were new to the school. I was being asked by one of the teachers who is new to the school this year, so I felt that I should be a little careful in my reply. I want to be forthcoming, but I don't want to cause any kind of stress-inducing fuss. So, I said this:
"It's good to be at a school where change can happen. We've been through a lot in my nine years here. I have worked with nine different principals. The principal we had three years ago passed away suddenly at the beginning of the year from liver cancer. The main building has been slated for modernization for eight years now. Two years ago they started the demolition work on the top floor and moved everyone up there out to portables. Those of us who were downstairs worked below the hammering, pounding, and even a broken pipe that caused a brief rainstorm in my classroom. All through this phase we walked kids through a chain link fence down to what we quietly referred to as 'the dungeon.' During this time our staff stayed relatively steady, last year we only replaced one teacher. Then came the bad news about our test scores. By all the standard measuring sticks (API, AYP, MOUSE) we were failing. That is to say that we were not making 'adequate yearly progress' or at least we were not making the progress required by state and federal legislation. Among our staff, we all pretty much agreed that holding steady under our current condition was progress enough. But weren't the ones who made the decisions about what happens to a Program Improvement school. We were given the choice of becoming a charter school or having our staff reconstituted. The charter option we were offered was sketchy at best, and so we picked option number two. Most of our staff left or wasn't asked back - the punch line being that our API went up almost thirty points last year. Sometimes I wonder if I was fortunate to be one of the teachers who was asked to stay. I got what I asked for, that's for sure. Now we have ten new teachers and the same gargantuan task. How do I feel? A little like Sisyphus, I guess."