Let Go

My principal at the achievement academy, a very nice and disorganized man, told me that my position number, along with that of the four other new hires, had not been released yet. He also said that we all had to go downtown and get out fingerprints and other paperwork before we could go back to our classes. So instead of going to the classes, we all had to go downtown. A student advocate or security guard watched my class and I had a soft day downtown. This unexpected day off was made a lot more frustrating by the fact that all the office staff said that I could not fill out the paperwork until I had my position number.

On the way back to school I pulled off Lakeshore on 57th and took a walk by the lake. It was a beautiful day. But I had a heavy feeling.

When I got back I was told that my number was not going to be released and I was out of a job.

Every year CPS plays games and blunders with student enrollment. It is not all their fault, Chicago kids move all the time and might go to several schools in one year. Boundaries are about as well defined and logical as the voting districts of Texas. Some schools on the southwest side were so overcrowded that teachers had fifty kids in a class, and kids took two or three gym classes a day just so the school could warehouse them. It is also very difficult to predict school enrollment with an average minority drop out rate of 50%

My classes were full, and had been recombined. The achievement academy class was only supposed to be 15 kids, and all my classes were over 20, one was over 30. Something wasn't right. I was told that hopefully the position number would be released later.

I had to drive home that day to go to my best friends wedding, to be the best man. I had looked forward to it for so long, looking down the long hall of CVS to the light coming in through a window, and the view of the freeway that I knew I would be taking.

And now I was driving back to Michigan, and I could not let go. Thinking about the kids. Thinking that I hadn't had the time, the experience, the mistakes necessary for these kids to remember me.

I couldn't let go. And in the next month of unemployment, I hit a new bottom.