Tuesday Slice: Big decision, new beginning

Life in quarantine was moving along.  End-of-school-year plans were being made, speculations about next year discussed lightly but without much purpose with so much unknown.  

On April 30th, my plans were turned upside down.  My neighborhood school librarian announced her retirement, a year or three earlier than I expected.  The school where I picked up and dropped off my children for eleven years, taught and interned for another three years while I worked on my library degree, was in need of a librarian for next year.

I was in shock for the next three days.  I weighed the pros and cons of applying with the library services director, trusted friends, colleagues in other Title I schools.  Other than the hectic pace of serving 1250 students at my upper-SES campus, I love my current job.  My administrators, staff, and assistant are amazingly supportive of my library program, as are the parents and students.  I am completely happy where I am.

And so I wrestled with this for two solid weeks, even as I applied for the position and went through a rigorous interview process.  Even as I was offered the job, and said yes.  Even as I announced, through my tears, my acceptance to my principal and our leadership team.

There are things I'm giving up by taking this job.  I'll miss daily visits (if we ever get those back) with my wonderful coworkers and students I've grown to know over the last seven years, these people who have taught me how to be a librarian.  I'll miss my wonderful assistant, who does her job so well that I can't claim to be her manager.  On a practical note, I'm giving up a spacious library that's only twelve years old, with windows on either side to view the mountain laurels and let in the sunshine, with an adult-sized bathroom tucked into the corner.  My neighborhood school was built in 1977; the library is small, completely enclosed by hallways in the center of the building, with no windows or natural light--and the bathroom is around the corner.

But...I will be gaining a fresh start, a chance to change my perspective, to focus anew on my "why" for being a librarian.  To pay back a little of what this school did for me and my children in their formative years.  To take what I've learned at an upper-SES school and figure out how to make it happen at a Title I campus.  To encourage another learning community to use and love the library as much as I do.  The three-minute commute and smaller campus--550 students--are pluses, too.

 

I've already received a very warm welcome from my "new" campus.  May I serve them well.