Feels Like Home

 I know that I prattle on and on in this space from time to time about the time I have spent working for the Oakland Unified School District. "More than two decades...blah, blah, blah." I did not come to this job jaded. I came because I felt I was "good with kids." That particular qualification turns out to have put me in pretty good stead over the years. The trouble I have had during all this time has not been with the short people. It has been with grownups. 

Not the ones with whom I have worked directly. I have had the good fortune to do this job alongside some of the most dedicated individuals I could imagine. Working at a school in urban Oakland is a great way to test one's mettle, and at times one's capacity to be "good with kids." The real challenge hasn't come to me from the fresh and periodically frustrated faces of the youth. It has come from those on high. I suppose I might have had a sense of this when I first came to this place, part of a crew that had been hired to replace nearly half of the folks who had been keeping the pencils moving and the recess bells ringing. I came here on an intern credential, which meant that I had to learn the job on the fly while making sure to mind my Ps and Qs while I did so because I could be let go at any time.

I passed that phase, and moved onto "career mode." It was during this time that it became clear that my tendency to go the extra mile or do the little things to keep things running was part of what I came to understand was job security. Now I have a key that opens most of the doors in the building. I show up early. I stay late. I have been in it for the long haul. 

You may believe that twenty-five years would qualify as a long haul. And it is, comparatively, especially when I look around and notice that I am the only one left of all those with whom I first came. I have now had several instances of teaching the children of children that I taught in those early days. "Dedicated" is a word that gets applied to yours truly on a somewhat frequent basis. 

And now my school's name is on a list. A list that suggests that we might soon be closing. Not because we aren't dedicated. Or because we are bad at what we are doing. Because the school district has been told that that they need to close schools to save money. They call this "consolidation." There aren't as many kids coming to our school as there used to be. When I started, this was a year-round school, which meant we had to have classes coming on and off track in three month shifts, making room for the crowd. That has not been the case for twenty years. Over the past few years, our daily attendance numbers have continued to flag, but not the staff's determination to bring a quality education to every child that walks through that front gate. We're not making any money. 

When I first came here, it was because the city of Oakland was in a flurry of hiring teachers to meet the demand created by the community. I jumped in that line. Now I am looking at the tail end of my story, but I find myself torn apart looking at those whose careers are just beginning. If I would have jumped ship every time there was a threat to close our school or reconfigure the staff, I might be running that bait shop in Key West that I have imagined all these years. I have a place to go when all is said and done. I can find a corner to wait out the last few years until I am ready to test the waters of retirement. But for all those who followed behind me, and those families who have walked through those gates? 

Sometimes even the teacher doesn't know the answer to the questions.