13. FACS and Flexibility

FACS and Flexibility

I sent a short letter of my experience to our district Superintendent.  I guess she sent it to her Human Resources dept.  The HR lady who had worked with me on the Chemistry job offer in 2011 actually went online and read all of my blog posts and contacted me.

The nice lady was partly (and politely) defending their actions with the employment situation because their hands are tied by their procedures and requirements.  I understand her frustration, as she seems to understand mine.  The parents and students with substitutes for months are the ones who might not understand.

Then I got a call from a local middle school asking me to take a long-term sub for a maternity leave for the Foods/Sewing teacher.  They were given my name by the nice lady at HR, who told them to call me.  While very nice, that's pretty interesting, because HR knows that:

a) My license expired and I now only have a general sub license which is not approved for long-term sub slots (three day max)

b) When I had my license I was only high school endorsed, and never took the ORELA or did the other things required for a teacher or long-term sub in middle school

c) I have never had a FACS endorsement, required for a long-term sub in FACS

I suppose this means that someone has power to side-step the statutes after all.  There always WAS wiggle room. 

If they had exercised that power years ago when they advertised in my dietetics jobs letter for an RD for a Foods/FACS opening, I could have been teaching this entire time.

Now they can ignore the rules and be super flexible to get “the right person for the job” she said.

Now that I have brought the ridiculous situation to their attention, I have, possibly, sadly, embarrassed people who did not create this mess.  They are being very nice and trying to fix it.  I am trying to fix it too.  If not for myself, then for future educators and certainly for the students.