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This is not the chapter I wanted to write at this point in the year. Turns out, despite the title of this project and despite my confidence in my resume when I started last school year, this was not my last year teaching. There will be at least one more. 

 

To my incoming fifth graders who told me they want me to be a principal, just not next year: can you use your ability to bend the universe to your will to pick me some lottery numbers? Or, even better, influence book shoppers to buy my books? I’d happily pause my journey to the principal’s office in exchange for a few hundred book sales a month.💭 Up from two book sales per month. My book profits are enough to buy me one waffle per fiscal quarter. Or, if you don’t care to benefit me personally: world peace.

 

I want to be clear from the start: it’s not that I don’t love teaching, because I do. But, when you know what you want the rest of your career to look like, you want to get started as soon as possible. I love teaching, and I love teachers, and I want to be a principal in order to break down the barriers to teachers loving their jobs. I want to start doing that as soon as possible. 

 

That just won’t be next year. 

 

Let’s go back in time two years and understand why. 

 

In Iowa, we have a layer between the school districts and the state Department of Education called the Area Education Agencies. They exist to provide support services to school districts that it’s not cost-effective for the school districts to provide for themselves. A single school district may not be able to employ a full-time autism expert, but the AEA can employ an expert that serves multiple school districts. I regularly work with a gifted education expert who has the time to keep up to date on research and who helps our department work through our service philosophy and with data analysis; she also does the same for multiple other districts in our area. 

 

Our AEAs provide over one hundred other services to school districts, including SPED consultants, media services, research services, school improvement specialists, data analysts, and more. 

 

At least, they used to. Two years ago, our governor decided our AEAs should be pared back to focus mostly on special education services.💭 Ironically, my two-minute speech before a legislative committee against this proposal was one of the first times I realized how much I liked advocating for education and that I could do that better as an administrator. All other functions would change to a fee-for-service model that the AEAs would drop if they didn’t have the revenue coming in from school districts to support them. 💭 You know, the whole "schools should be run like businesses" argument, despite the fact that schools are public services and not businesses.

 

This led to most of our AEAs reducing their workforce throughout the year. The people being let go? All qualified, licensed, and experienced school administrators. All these people hit the job market at the same time I did, leading to what one hiring manager told me was “an unusually deep field of candidates.”

 

It seems the number one qualification hiring committees were looking for in their candidates was having already been a principal somewhere. It was like I joined open try-outs for a minor league baseball team right after the major leagues ordered team rosters cut in half. I didn’t stand a chance.💭 I would pick a sport I’m good at for this analogy except there aren’t any.

 

I would go on to learn that I would be one of forty applicants to be a middle school assistant principal in the middle of nowhere. I was a semi-finalist to be a middle school principal in a small town in which their entire district was in one building and this building was the biggest structure in the town. The person who eventually got this job? He has a doctorate and is a former superintendent of another district. 

 

When that district ghosted me, and I stalked their social media to see who they hired, I gave probably the most defeated exhale of my life. I was up against that? Here? Yes, he was probably an AEA consultant who needed to find a new opportunity. 

 

We had two assistant principal openings in my own district for which I wasn’t even considered. Though they care about raising their own talent (at least, I’m told), the hiring managers simply can’t turn away talent with years of experience in the exact areas for which they’re looking. 

 

Now, we’ve reached the end of the line: at least fifty applications; about 45 “Thanks, but no thanks” letters (or straight-up ghosting); five screening interviews;💭 One screening interview for which I excitedly dropped $200 to print the materials they asked me to prepare, thinking that was actually a good investment. one actual interview; no job acquired. Just like my 5th graders wanted. 

 

Though I have acquired at least fifteen pounds. Hey, you try sticking to a diet and exercise plan when you’re getting thrice-weekly rejection letters and ice cream makes you happy. 

 

I’m on the fifth draft of my resume and the 20th draft of my cover letter. 

 

This was a new kind of stress: the stress of waiting, not knowing, and uncertainty. I handle stress by finding the source of the stress and doing something about it - a character trait that will serve me well as principal. Here, however, once I submit the application, there is nothing I can do, and my body didn’t handle that well. 

 

Being told I’m a semi-finalist, being asked to submit more information, and then hearing absolutely nothing until a Facebook post two weeks later announcing their new hire… my body handled that about as well as a sailboat stuck in the middle of the ocean, having sent out your distress call hoping someone heard it, but not knowing for sure and having to prepare for the eventuality that you may be adrift for a very long time. 

 

And that is why I haven’t written a new chapter in five months. I just… couldn’t. 💭 I had also hoped that hiring committees would Google my name, come across this blog, and read it to get a more clear picture of who I am. My web analytics data, however, shows me that didn’t happen.

 

Though I can check my email every three minutes, because there wasn’t good news in my inbox three minutes ago but there might be some now!

 

Anyway: we’ve reached the end. We’re now past the date where my district will release me from my contract. Even if I were magically offered a position, I couldn’t accept it. We’ve reached the end of the road for this year. Every door I needed to have open for me the past two years opened when I needed it to, but the brick wall is right here and that’s just that. 

 

So, I’ll spend the next year doing what I do: taking action.

 

I’ll continue to take on extra projects to grow my portfolio and rise above next year’s candidates. 

 

I’ve already taken on a part-time job to pay for my wife’s schooling instead of using that raise we were counting on. 

 

To the delight of my fifth graders, I’ll continue to teach them as well as I can, at least one more year.

 

I want to be clear: I love my school, I love my students, and I love my colleagues. I’m not desperate to get away from them. But I know what I want to do for the rest of my career and I’m anxious to get started. 

 

To next year.

 

__________________________

 

David Dubczak is an educator and writer documenting his final year in the classroom before transitioning into school administration. Follow David Dubczak - Writer on Facebook to keep up with semi-weekly posts. 

 

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Read David's books and plays right here at www.DavidDWriter.com. Since I'm a nerd, I've written a lot (but not exclusively) about ships. 

 

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