Reassigned

The summer is officially over and it’s back to work for us teachers. There are usually mixed emotions that run through my mind at the start of the school year- the bitterness of the end of summer and vacation but the sweetness of working and impacting children’s lives and working with co-workers you enjoy being around (and of course, getting paid).

However, due to the economic crisis and the disaster known as the California State Budget, work is not the same. Education was one of the areas where the cutbacks hurt the most. I have seen it first hand how having diminutive resources severally handicaps educators to be able to inspire students to achieve their full potential.


Over the past two years, I’ve been working at Benton Middle School in La Mirada, California. During that time, I have grown close to my staff and have been able to aide children to make better decisions with their lives. I didn’t expect this coming year to be any different. After spending two days working on setting up my room, I received a call in the evening saying that I’ve been “reassigned” to another school. This happened the day before the first day of school. Classy. This was due to declining enrollment and the school simply did not have the numbers to keep me at the current site. I felt like Tom Hanson in 500 days of summer, before he got over Summer. Why did I choose the education field as a profession? Oh that’s right . . . summers off.

I pulled up to my new site today in a mass of traffic as though there were a sixteen-car pile up on the freeway. I ended up parking three blocks away from the school. I was introduced to my aide and I told her where I parked, hoping that it was okay. Guess what, it wasn’t – it was street sweeper day and it already passed by the time I could move my car. My aide also told me to park the car “where I could see it,” because her car was stolen a couple of years ago. I’m sure that will bring some peace of mind, wondering throughout the day if my car is going to still be there when I got back after work.

Now there are two contrasting schools of thought going through my body. The first being, “This absolutely sucks and God hates me” (A little dramatic, I realize). If I were still single, I would be thinking, “Okay, this is where God wants me to find my wife.” But since I’m already married to the best woman for me this makes zero sense. Second, my theology tells me that God is both good AND sovereign, that ultimately He knows what He’s doing. Although I may not like the idea at present time, in the end He will do a work.



(Consequently, I entered the staff lotto pool before I left so I’m crossing my fingers. What does the lotto pool have to do with me being reassigned? Imagine if the staff won the lotto, we would be splitting up a few million dollars. I am currently at the lower income side of the district. I notice a couple of needy students at the new school and now I could afford to buy a couple of ipods with some John Piper sermons already downloaded for them. They love me for it and their lives are changed forever. I might even teach them something. The students continue to write emails to me through the years and become missionaries to some far off land. That sounds good to me). Of course I’ll miss my friends/co-workers and students from Benton but I guess there is something else in the fold for me and only God knows what it is. That will have to do for now. Stay tuned . . .