Last week my principal announced that we had money in the budget to replace the desks in some of our classrooms for next year. The desks we currently have are those with small shelves to place materials and they have become repositories for trash, textbooks, lost cell phones, and some worse things I choose not to mention. The replacement desks will have no shelves and no graffiti. When I heard this news I was (and am) elated.
Then on Friday when my grade team had our weekly meeting I looked outside our meeting room and - lo and behold - the desks were there! Not only was the funding in our budget for new desks but they were coming earlier than I had expected!
It is unfortunate that I have to say this but I do not think this kind of thing - simple though it is - would happen in Philadelphia. In my four years of teaching there I never once expected to receive any special budgetary consideration, let alone earlier than expected.
Currently in Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite has announced that he needs $216 million in order to open schools in September and here I am not more than 100 miles away reeling because we have an adequate budget. Or, perhaps, it is still inadequate and I am simply unaware as to what an "adequate" budget really is.
I look forward to learning what real schools can do with actual money.
Then on Friday when my grade team had our weekly meeting I looked outside our meeting room and - lo and behold - the desks were there! Not only was the funding in our budget for new desks but they were coming earlier than I had expected!
It is unfortunate that I have to say this but I do not think this kind of thing - simple though it is - would happen in Philadelphia. In my four years of teaching there I never once expected to receive any special budgetary consideration, let alone earlier than expected.
Currently in Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite has announced that he needs $216 million in order to open schools in September and here I am not more than 100 miles away reeling because we have an adequate budget. Or, perhaps, it is still inadequate and I am simply unaware as to what an "adequate" budget really is.
I look forward to learning what real schools can do with actual money.
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