Say Hi and Bye to the New Guy

 September and early October are times in the school year that are both full of beginnings and endings. Students meet their new teachers and classmates. Teachers join new schools and get to know new colleagues and communities. However, in late September, school numbers get readjusted. Staffing shifts happen. Buildings gain or lose teachers. It's a rollercoaster ride that people in education often call "ReOrg". Reorganization is a mixed blessing. It was the way I obtained my first full-time permanent contract; yet, it can be awful to upend growing learning communities, like when I had to switch from a Grade 6-7 to a Grade 5-6 assignment and "give up" my Grade 7s. 

Considering the size of our staff, we have a rather large number of LTOs (long-term occasional) teachers at our site this year, for various reasons. One position that was particularly hard to fill was that of our Special Education Resource Teacher. Thankfully, we found someone willing and able to take the position, and Catherine Wang arrived.

Catherine is a new graduate from the Faculty of Education, but what she may "lack" in terms of experience, she more than made up for with her willingness and enthusiasm. She travelled from downtown to our school in north-east Scarborough via public transit every day, a 90 minute commute one way. I offered to drop her to the nearest station to shorten the trip a bit, so we had the chance to get to know each other a bit more on these drives.

Catherine is eager to learn as much as she can from everyone. She asked questions and observed how the adults interacted with the students. She sought genuine feedback after dealing with students and valued all the advice she was given. One of her greatest talents was the way she quickly forged relationships with all members of the school community. We were so fortunate that she is fluent in Mandarin, so we often called on her to help us with translation issues. After just a few weeks, the parents started asking for Ms. Wang by name for assistance!

I don't have many photos of Ms. Wang, because after her Special Education schedule was established, she was busy supporting students in many classes. This is a shot of her helping one of the kindergarten classes I saw in the library on the second day of school. Catherine is hard-working. She took three separate Additional Qualification courses over the summer to make herself more marketable and improve her skills. She agreed to work on creating the front hall display and took this task seriously, researching welcoming displays and considering equitable representation. She constantly offered to help out in any way she could.

I keep flipping between writing in the present and the past tense, because Catherine is no longer at our school. Our school board has gone on a mass hiring blitz, both this spring and this fall. There were over 200 positions listed a week ago that were permanent contract jobs! This is unprecedented. I was a supply teacher for over a year before I was hired full-time, and I know of many other teachers who spent years working as OTs and LTOs before landing their secure positions. I just peeked on the board website and there are still 24 positions advertised on September 28 with hopes of filling for early October! Golden opportunities like this don't happen every day, so Catherine sent out a flurry of applications. She actually received and conducted 13 interviews for positions over the course of three days. And she was successful! She starts her new, full-time, permanent contract position on Monday October 2.

Catherine oozes gratitude. She sent the staff a lovely email thanking everyone for being so wonderful and supportive. She never failed to thank me every day for dropping her off at the subway, and I'd often find boxes of "thank you Timbits" on my desk from her. She is so appreciative of time she has spent at our school, her fortune in snagging a LTO so quickly after graduation, and all of the kindness she's been shown. She's young enough to be my daughter - in fact, she's just a month older than my eldest - and she may qualify as the "new guy" but she won't stay a "n00b" for long. Her positive attitude and go-getter disposition will take her far. Congratulations Catherine, and all the best in your new teaching job!