It's official

Next year, I'll be teaching 5th grade again.

As you know, I've been going back and forth on this issue for the last couple of months. Today, Mrs. A told me that she was keeping me in my current grade (I had finally put it in her hands, unable to make up my mind), for 2 main reasons:

1) Our fifth grade team is very strong, in the sense that we're the longest-running team in the school and we work together very well; she really doesn't want to break us up.

2) Due to the smaller size of our middle school, I would have to teach another subject besides LA to fill up my schedule, and since LA is the only one I'm officially endorsed in, I'd be technically teaching "out of area" while I earned my reading (or whatever the subject was) endorsement. Now, it's not a HUGE deal to teach out of your area for the first year or two while you're earning an endorsement, but it's just easier to find someone who's ready to go in all areas. And who knows, they could have had me do LA and reading this year, but then maybe I would have needed to do LA and social studies the year after that--so yeah, I could be endlessly "chasing" the proper endorsement.

So those are the 2 main reasons behind her decision. When she told me, I kind of stopped and asked myself, "Okay, how do I feel about that?" and you know, I felt fine. I know 5th grade, I know my team, and I know that staying in this grade will allow me to focus on my many, many areas of improvement (which I will be sitting down and outlining this summer, and then narrowing it down to my top 2 or 3 to work on for the next school year). I KNOW I like fifth grade and I KNOW I'll be happy there, which is more than I could say for middle school. Plus--whoot!--now I won't have to take those reading classes this summer that I would have if I were switching to middle school.

Am I a little disappointed? Sure. But in the end, I think it's the best decision. This will only be my 4th year of teaching...I have plenty of time to experiment. And maybe I'll take those reading classes anyway, to start working my way towards an endorsement. Because hey...you never know.