Welcome Bossy's Readers!

To those coming to my blog from Bossy's place for the first time, I'll confess that I haven't been blogging very much lately. In the past year, my job has changed pretty significantly. For the next two years, I'm out of the classroom because of my new position as president of my local teachers union. Yup, I'm one of those "union bosses." More days than not, I'm rather stretched for time. As with anything, we have to prioritize and as much as I love blogging, learning this new job saps my energy to where I don't have much left at the end of the day.

The other problem that I've faced is that my beloved laptop died last year. This has meant that I'm forced to share one computer in a household with four other people! Two of which are teens and one who recently turned 21. Next on my list of things to buy would be an Apple MacBook because I'm tired of PC's dying on me!

Just before becoming president of my local union, I was a 6th grade teacher. I do miss my kids a lot this year!! I taught in an urban district that has faced a lot of difficulties over the past five to six years. The recent cuts to education in California have compounded the problems we face as a district tremendously. In California last year, 16,000 teachers lost their jobs. In my district, we lost 100 teachers. Our class sizes have increased, our campuses are not as safe, and our teachers continue to feel the pressure to perform absolutely miracles in some of the worst circumstances anyone could imagine. So, even though I miss my students, I fight for the teachers because I believe that we have become an easy scapegoat in all that's wrong with public education.

I'll step off the soapbox and welcome you to my humble blog. So anyway, welcome! Feel free to browse.