Put on your dancing shoes and your party hat because it has finally happened! I’m going to be a teacher!
Monday night the Western Plains Unified School District 106 Board of Education voted to initiate a full-fledged journalism program, and they offered me the contract to teach it.
I’m beyond stoked!
When I moved out to Ransom, Kan., last September, I wanted to shift gears from working in the news industry to teaching the craft I love so much — journalism, but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would get that opportunity so quickly. I was figuring on asking and being told no a couple times, so having the board see the wonderful potential of a journalism program and having the faith in me to lead it means a lot to me.
I’ve got a lot of plans for this program, and though I’ve been working on them for a while now, I feel I can really kick it into high gear and start to make things happen.
I promise to go into further detail about those plans in a later post, but right now I have more good news to share.
I’m coaching. All year long.
I’m the head football coach, the assistant boys’ basketball coach and an assistant track and field coach for next year.
Isn’t that awesome?
Also, it sounds like a couple more tasks might be coming my way too, but those have yet to be determined.
I’ve had so many opportunities out here already, I can only imagine what else will come my way. I’m truly blessed.
Just to recap, here’s a current list of everything I will be involved in at Western Plains High School next year:
- Journalism Instructor (part-time)
- In-house Paraeducator (part-time)
- Head Football Coach
- Assistant Boys’ Basketball Coach
- Assistant Track and Field Coach
- Bus Driver
Am I going to be busy? You bet, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Again, I promise to go into more detail about some of my plans, but I’m just too excited to sit still long enough to type them up in a coherent post. I will do it soon though.
Of course, there is one burning question left unanswered, isn’t there?
Well, I guess there’s two. One being the status of the superintendent position. They’ve hired someone, and I will have an official post about that later.
But the more important question in my mind is: Have I signed these contracts that have been offered?
Not yet. But I always have a pen in my pocket.
Congratulations! I keyworded my way to your blog. I’m also trying to get into a transition to teaching program here in Wichita, but I feel like I’m getting the runaround from the T2T department at WSU. I also have a bachelor’s degree in communication (3.224 GPA) and will finish a master’s thesis in mass communication (3.85 GPA) from Pittsburg State by the end of summer. However, an administrative assistant is telling me that I probably won’t qualify to teach middle school English. She’s got to be kidding. I minored in creative writing and have 27 hours in English not including 101 and 102. Communication and English are similar in many regards, so I just don’t get it. There doesn’t seem to be a need for journalism teachers here, either. Good luck!