Job updates: The good, the bad...I don't think there's any ugly!

Let's start with the bad, shall we?

It was discovered, and revealed to the district as a whole on Wednesday, that we are 3-4 million dollars short of being able to simply pay our bills this year. Meaning, if cuts aren't made soon, we won't even be able to make it through the year. Awesome.

Originally the intent was to cut around 5 million this year to be put in the bank. Our district has no savings, so if a roof needs to be replaced, too bad. School floods? Oh well! You need text books? Not in the budget. Now, it appears, that many things were not in the budget, including coaches stipends and extra duty pay, among others.

Thursday we got word that 23 teacher contracts had been rejected. Every teacher's contract gets voted on by the board, and these 23 hadn't yet been voted on as they'd been hired just before school started. The board voted to keep these people in position until Dec 31, at which time their contracts would run out. We've heard that their contracts may be extended, but I don't see it as a likely event. We've also heard that our union is going to try to fight to keep these jobs in place; sadly, I fear that in order to keep these 23 we'll have to sacrifice a different 23. In the end, the result will be the same - at least 23 teachers will be lost, and we're all very sure there is more to come.

Needless to say, things in our district, and in our house somewhat, are tense. Everyone just wants to know what's going to happen next and for how much longer we have jobs.

The best part of all this? The man who was in charge, the man who allowed this all to happen (and, in my mind, though it can't necessarily be proven, caused it) got a $200k severance package.

Onto the good...

We had our first softball games today. Things went really, really well! I'm very pleased with where we are as a team, and where the pitching staff is right now. We're in a very good starting place and I know that with all the work they're doing, we'll continue to see improvements and will hopefully be the team to beat in the spring. I know that's an odd thing to want, but I think this team needs it. They need their fire fueled. We've been the underdogs long enough, it's time to come out and strut our stuff.