Another Bite

I recently received a second interview offer. Ashland Middle School is 93% white and less than 10% low income. AMS has a 13 to 1 student- teacher ratio (pretty high) with most students in the proficient range (one step below advanced) for the Mathematics and Language Arts MCAS scores. Looking on the school website, there are separate pages for teachers, students and parents and most teachers have their own class web pages. Wow... this school is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the other school that wanted to interview me. Now, some of you maybe thinking that Ashland would be an ideal school district for me. The reality is that all schools have a set of challenges that teachers have to face. In a Title I school, teachers face a lack of quality educational materials and low standardized test scores. In a suburban school, teachers are confronted with overbearing soccer moms and pressure from administrators.

As most of you probably know, I want to work in a school that faces the former. I am reluctant to use terms like “low-income” and “urban” here- they sound very cliché and I don’t want to sound like a naïve martyr. I just feel that I have the energy and motivation to work in such a school. Because I have experienced the parents who complete their kids’ homework and show up to every school function in my own education, I need these other experiences to broaden my perspective.

A representative from Ashland called and said that they had a 3 o’clock opening on June 2nd. (If they are setting up a schedule, they must have a fair amount of applicants, no?) After enlisting some office mates (the original blogger/J2K and my mentor) to help me make a decision, I realized that setting up an initial phone interview that may be followed up with a visit to the school would be far more effective than me flying to Beantown every time I get an interview.