Officially employed!

I am officially employed!  I will be the one and only first grade teacher at Alianza Academy on the Magna campus!!  I can't really believe it!  Here's the story.....

Ever since April I've been applying for pretty much every K-3 position available in Nebo, Provo, Alpine, Granite, Canyons, and Jordan districts.  I got one interview and that one didn't work out which was fine because I didn't want to work at a year-round school anyway.  So I wasn't having much luck for some reason.  Finally I decided to start applying at charter schools.  One day I was applying on teachers-teachers.com and I came across a charter school in Salt Lake called Alianza Academy.  I noticed that the director's name is Robert Ralphs.  I had a teacher in high school named Robert Ralphs and I wondered if it could be him.  I searched the website for any information about the faculty I could find and discovered it IS him!  I applied and the same day I got a call from a Marian Florence saying that she was my AP art teacher's wife and now she works  as Mr. Ralph's secretary!!  I was kind of in shock!  She said Robert wanted to meet with me the next day so of course I said YES!

So the next day I drive down to Salt Lake City and meet with my old high school teacher.  He immediately tells me I look exactly the same as I did when I was a junior in high school and says how happy he is to see me again.  We have an amazing interview that lasted for about an hour but it didn't seem that long because we were just talking.  He asked a couple questions but he didn't write anything down.  He was just listening to me and probing for answers in roundabout ways.  I felt really good leaving the interview that day.  I immediately called Ian and after telling him everything, he guaranteed me I had the job.  I didn't want to assume that yet an get my hopes up.  Robert said he would let me know in about a week.

I got an e-mail from Marian telling me that Robert wants to meet with me the next day. She said this probably means it's good news but I didn't know HOW good.  So I go in the next day and he fiddles with some papers and things for about 5 minutes so I was pretty nervous.  Finally he looks up and says "I'm here to offer you a job."  I was so relieved!  Then he says "It's a first grade position in Magna."  I'm even more relieved at this point because I wanted first grade!  We talk a little more about the details and I tell him I'd like a couple days to think about it.

Well after calling him with some more questions, I decided to accept the job!  It's going to be really hard I know.  Alianza Academy is a brand new charter school this year so I would be in on the ground level.  Which means less structure and more work.  But I think I can do it.  I know I can if I work really hard.  I'm going to need to get a lot of advise from other first grade teachers I know.

Well that's about it!  I signed a contract and now I'm going to start teaching on August 29, 2011!  A REAL TEACHER!  It's hard to believe....  I'm actually quite terrified.  But I've been trained and I'll do my best and work really hard.  And hopefully I'll change some kids' lives for the better :)