Well people, March 15th, the deadline for possible layoffs in the schools has come and gone, and I did not get a letter that I am on the potential pink slip list. I can officially stop stalking my poor mailman. Its a bittersweet moment, because while now I don’t have to look for another job and re-title my blog, “Notes from the Former School Psychologist Who Got Stabbed in The Back By the People She Gave 10 Years of Her Life To,” there are many of my colleagues who did get the dreaded letter and may not be returning. Some of the best psychologists are our new people, and the policy “last hired, first fired” is causing our department and some of my schools to potentially lose some of the best people.
In my moment of crisis when I wrote this post about the Ides of March drama, I received many wonderful emails from people lending me their support. One such teacher, Nancy, of The Teacher Geek Blog wrote me an email that brought me to tears. She also shared a link to an article she recently wrote about how to deal with being laid off from a school district, and I found it really helpful. So here it is for my colleagues and blog friends who are sadly in this position: Surviving Unemployment:Purgatory.
If anyone else has any tips for our colleagues in limbo with a potential layoff notice, feel free to post them here. The best thing written to me, that I can share is Nancy’s quote: “Working in a large urban district, you have already shown that you have amazing resilience. That same resilience will will get you through this.”
Holla, Nancy.