Life in general...

It's a lazy weekend Sunday and I'm listening to the rain come down and it's so relaxing. It's the perfect way to start Spring Break.

Mom got here today and we'll be running around this week to do some fun stuff!

I think I'll make a list:

1. I cleaned house and flung stuff around like a mad person b/c Mom was on her way. It's always much funner to get it all together at the last minute. I feel very Trading Spaces when I do that. I only just finished painting the extra bed white yesterday, went and bought a mattress in the rain (strapped it to the top of the FJ...it was plastic wrapped), and zipped over to target today and bought this...cuz I felt like I needed something pretty in here!! I LOVE it and may just come live in this room myself! haha!

2. We have weird things growing in the aquarium!! Look at Warren's blog at some point I'll put pictures there, but OMG there is a worm/centipede looking thing that we finally saw out all the way today for the first time...and yesterday we saw finally the whole of another little organism which we believe to be TWO sea star things (the link is what they look like in our tank, we think that is what maybe we have) that all just spontaneously grew out of the LIVE ROCK! O.O

3. Warren started a new section of his Internal Med. rotation this week in infectious disease. He doesn't really care for the subject and is just going to hang in there for the next three weeks. He had his first med school patient that he's really followed die this weekend so he's a little sad too, but the guy had a "constellation" of problems (to use W's new word, lol) so I'm not really that surprised at the outcome.

4. It will be interesting to see how work pans out now that 2 ppl retired and 2 were RIFed (b/c we had two ppl not yet certified in library science, they are still in college taking their classes to be LMS's) so that leaves two positions for me to choose from but I'm trying to get them to create a 3rd spot to catalog all the "new" book donations that are in, AND my name is attached to a grant that if they win I could be the "director" and oversee that...so somewhere I will work for GISD next year just not sure where exactly.

K, I think that's all for now folks! Laters!

Upcoming RIF info...

Weblink for the newspaper article: http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=dd8960c8cbbc1a73

Board Meeting weblink (which should be updated soon with this weeks meeting added on):

http://www.gisd.org/1635102515318260/podcasts/browse.asp?A=399&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=55715

And...

A Memo from our Principal's:
____________________________________________________________________
REDUCTION IN FORCE UPDATE
March 5, 2009

From: Mr. Bouldin and Ms. Wiley

§ School Board approved Phase II – reduction of teaching positions
§ School Board approved the staffing of 20 to 1 teacher/student ratio for next school year which would add additional teaching unit(s) to present campus enrollment count
§ Principals will meet with Human Resource and Superintendent Cleveland next week to finalize campus teacher numbers and names for reduction
§ As of date: teacher notification will occur prior to Spring Break
§ March 25, teacher names will go to School Board for the process of non-renewal positions due to reduction in force Friday, March 6 is deadline to be eligible for voluntary exit/retirement incentive. Paperwork needs to be completed, notarized and turned in to the Human Resource Office

I <3 Dr. Seuss

Saturday we had Saturday School from 8-1 to make up a "Hurricane Day." We passed out donated books at EVERY school in the district that day, mostly those that Jesse brought down! :)

And for Dr. Seuss week, I thought ya'll might enjoy seeing a "few" of our donated Dr. Seuss books....







Oh, and rumor on the street is Friday is D-day for finding out RIF info...yikes!

GISD Update

Over the past week and a half there have been Board meetings and stuff going on...here is the breakdown of what is going to happen as far as a RIF is concerned over the course of the next few months:

Currently there is a voluntary RIF incentive going on. The district needs 220 people to go with it broken down by catagory...my catagory in Curriculum & Instruction under "Librarian" needs 3 of us to go. Well, let me re-phrase that...the maximum amount of librarians that can leave and still get the incintive pay is 3.

The incentive amount is a percentage of your salary based upon how long you have been in the district. See below:
1 to 5 years - 1%
6 to 10 years - 3%
11 to 15 years - 5%
16 to 20 years - 7%
20+ years - 10%

Yep that's right....1%.....I think that's like $500 MAYbe. So of course I'm not going to opt out. If I opt out then I for sure don't have a job, but have only a little bit of money as cushion. If I wait and get RIFed then I could at least draw unemployment and THEN look for another job (well I'll still be looking anyways). If I don't get RIFed then I'm still going to be in some other job with GISD. It's just a drag not knowing...

...RETIRE ya'll!!! :) You can have your job back in a year!!

I am so tired of Galveston. Driving to work in the morning is the most depressing thing, it sets the tone for the day & kills any kind of positive attitude I have going. We drive by (I'm commuting with the Art teacher) piles of trash & debris, houses that are leaning sideways, boats still sitting on the highway, flashing red stop lights, traffic that is made worse because of all the workers coming to work on the island...

Last week when the list I posted yesterday was told to us, it instantly killed any kind of work ethic I had going. If my school isn't opened up then why should I try to solicit donations of books and materials? If there is going to be a RIF, then why should I spend any time or effort on my job to filling out disaster relief forms for the library? Besides all that, what about UTMB? Will we even be living here come January?

I searched the 7 school districts north of Galveston that wouldn't be too far of a drive for job postings...but everyone has a full staff at this point.

Austin has one elementary librarian position open and 3 children's librarian openings in the public library system. Maybe moving wouldn't be so bad.

My body is so stressed from all of this that I missed my monthly last month, which I NEVER have ever had happen...but no worries I started yesterday. lol

I'm just tired. Tired of it all. Tired of seeing it; tired of smelling it (no kidding, it stinks still); tired of being here; tired of being in someone else's space both as a job and living arrangement. (For those of you who don't know, Warren is in our FEMA hotel and wrapping up surgery this week, and I am living in Mark's dining room on his air matress in his apartment). At this point, all I do is show up and get paid and at least there is some security in that. But I really just want to walk away, walk away and not come back. Thank God I don't have to deal with insurance people, although we still haven't gotten any money that I know of from FEMA so we are probably going to have to re-file or do another claim or something.

K, I'm going to go drive by my school that I'm contemplating breaking & entering to steal MY OWN THINGS back from. Then will drop some cat food off at the humane society and go drink half a bottle of wine & go to sleep.

Oh, & p.s. I have no internet at the apartment now, the network we were using secured themselves.

Later,

GISD Update...

Last Thursday & Friday, I was called over to one of our closed elementary schools to help clean out the library part of the building for, I was told, so families who are camping in their field area to be able to move into the school to live. So I guess when FEMA housing runs out, then Alamo Elementary will be opening up to those already living in the field around it to move into.

Per the notes my friend took from a small meeting with the Super last week...she said:

1. Right now Burnet's building has been stablized as far as carpet, dehumidifying, and spraying (?)...maybe for mold?

2. We are losing enrollment.

3. They can't keep putting money into a building that they may not use in the future.

4. The middle schools, Central & Weis, are priority because of over-crowding.

5. January will start looking closer at enrollment numbers and March will have a better idea of if/which school will need to close (right now there are 3 elementary schools closed, two here in Galveston and the one on Bolivar).

6. A district-wide RIF is possible but wouldn't happen until March.

7. If they do RIF, they will look at first your certification, then PDAS, and finally tenure.

8. Scott & Burnet may close if enrollment doesn't rise (if it gets up to 6,000 then they may need to keep both).

9. They are as of now not going to let people back into the buildings to collect personal items.

10. Pre-paid legal says that if they keep denying people access then we can file suit for our items in small claims court.