deandra.homeip.net

Well, Things have finally started to calm down after September Start-up. Now that I have time to take a breath and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and all that, I'm taking stock of just how this startup compared to previous years', especially in light of the changes that have happened to our school district recently.

It started this spring when the school board decided to go ahead with "reconfiguration", which is a fancy way of saying that they were turning one of our high schools into a junior school (grades eight and nine) and the other into a senior school (grades ten through twelve.) The junior school saw a drop in enrollment, while the senior school saw an increase. Along with that increase came a large amount of renovation work (a new computer lab, and several new offices, for instance.) I happened to be the one handling the computer-related stuff at the senior school, which means I was run off my feet, but not until after the carpenters, painters, and electricians had finished their job. After all, I can't install a computer in an office until the office, well, exists, and there's little things like power and ethernet available to connect the computer. The end result was that I got to try to cram a month's worth of work into about two weeks, which simply didn't happen.

To add insult to injury, the provincial government decided to retroactively pull the Annual Facilities Grant from the school boards' budgets around the province. Combined with the missing money from the previous years' AFG, this meant to us that we were short over a million dollars. Less money means people get laid off and schools don't get needed upgrades (like replacing heating boilers so the school doesn't freeze up in the winter.) I guess someone expects us to do more with less, or something. Well, I've worked myself to burnout twice before; it's not going to happen anymore.

However, there is a silver lining to this dark cloud. As part of my job, I'm constantly roaming from school to school, and I get approached by people in hallways all the time. In past years it's invariably meant that I'm expected to drop whatever it is that I'm doing to go help them rembmer their password or turn off their caps lock or something. As a result, I've developed a reflexive deer-in-headlights expression whenever I'm approached in this fashion. However, in the past month I've been approached by several staff members who've only said something along the lines of, "hey, how's it going?", and then continued on their way. It means people are starting to see me as a person rather than as a tool. It also means that people know where the source of the stress and low morale is, and they're not willing to shoot the messenger.