I was hired in May as a first grade teacher. After ten years away from full-time teaching, I'm finally back in the classroom and very excited about it. I spent all summer researching, planning, collecting materials and meeting with my teammate to get ready for first grade. However, the enrollment at my school is very low right now and if my numbers don't go up in the next couple days, I will either be switched to fourth grade or become a literacy interventionist. The only time I've worked with fourth graders is at an after school program. Needless to say, I'm flipping out! My head is spinning! The positive thing is that I will not lose my position at the school, but I don't know what it will be. Any thoughts? Advice? Empathy?
Just roll with it. When I was hired by my current district, I was switched schools the Friday before teacher inservice began. I was originally told second grade (I taught fifth in my previous district, prepared all summer for third as that’s what I was hired for). The Monday of inservice, I was told I was teaching fifth as the numbers had changed. I started the year with boxes in the corner and no whiteboard (I was an add-on section in a lovely portable). It all worked out. Fourth graders are still very young at the beginning of the year. I taught fourth for three years and never really enjoyed them until Christmas and they had matured some. Don’t let them make you nervous—they are really just tall first graders!
We are currently bursting at the seams in kinder and have super low numbers in 3rd. IF all the kinders show up during the first 5 days of school, the district office (assistant superintendent) will be making us move our new 3rd grade teacher to kindergarten. Poor thing is so stressed out. I wish we could let her move now, but I also understand where the D.O. is coming from in terms of making certain that all students are in their seats (because we sometimes have no-shows). ETA: the cap in grades K-3 is 24 students. All kinder classes are currently at 32! The third grade classes are sitting at 16-17 kids! Like I said, though, we’ll see who shows up.
I moved up from second to fourth a few years back. I wasn’t looking forward to it at the time (okay- dreading it), but fourth is now in my top three favorite grades. My fourth graders like silly songs for concepts, smelly stickers, and junk from the treasure box. They are just like agdamity said. They’re just tall little kids.
Thank you all for your replies! I'm very stressed about the possible change, but I also understand it. It wouldn't be fair for the fourth grade teacher to have 30+ kids while I have 12! I have two choices...quit or roll with it and accept the challenge. I choose the latter. I nannied for a family and one of the boys was in 3rd grade, even though he should have been in 4th. He was hilarious and really got my sense of humor. Roll with it and accept the challenge...my new mantra. Thanks again!
16-17 kids per class is really low? That’s seems like the perfect number of students per class per grade level to me, haha! My class sizes are typically around 20-25.
In Kinder-3rd, we make sure classes are at 24 students, 4th-6th grade are all at 32, and 7th and above are capped at 34. That being said, 16-17 kids in a class is never seen around here. When it does happen, everyone worries because we know the class will be "collapsed" and the teacher with the least seniority will be sent to the grade-level with the need for another teacher (per the teachers' union master agreement).
All I can say is God Bless those Kindergarten teachers. If I had an extra hour in the day, I'd give it to you for some extra sleep!
Our Ks are capped at 30 (with a teacher and a full-time early childhood educator), grades 1-3 are capped at 20, grades 4-8 are capped at ~32 (this isn't firm, though). Like YTG, classes smaller than 20 wouldn't happen; students would be shuffled and, usually, combined grade classes created. Our classes can be reorganized after the second week of school when firm numbers are submitted to the district. I've been in the situation where the school has either gained or lost a teacher based on actual vs. projected enrollment. Twice I have had my teaching assignment changed in mid-September.
It could be exciting, who knows? So far I only have 97 students over 5 class periods. One of my calc classes only has 14 students!! This is compared to last year when I had 121 over 5 class periods, which still wasn't bad, but quite a bit more. While I am excited to teach such small classes, I'm nervous they'll start combining classes and switching my schedule. Our new supervisor said she "worked some magic" to get us really small classes this year, but I'm just hoping it holds.
