Big News & Happy Bday Curtis

Curtis got a job offer yesterday from a school in SoCal to teach physics and math! It was his birthday present a day early. We went to Paris last night for dinner to celebrate. (Only in Vegas can a trip to Paris be done in a single evening and no airfare required.) He's getting the details from them and has a meeting with his head of school to see if Meadows will fight to keep him. I doubt they will, though.

Since the old administration was lined up against the wall at Christmas, the mood of the school changed dramatically. Many teachers have left or plan to leave at the end of the year. There also seems to be an effort to get rid of anyone hired by the old administration. Of the 7 teachers that were at the new teacher picnic, 1 just moved up from the middle school, 2 have already left and 1 has already been replaced but was allowed to stay to the end of the year with his replacement. Curtis seemed to be next on the list.

The new principal had been asking around about the status of Curtis's masters (which ain't happening). The weird thing is that he did not ask Curtis, but instead asked his department chair and the debate coach, who is Curtis's friend from high school. When Curtis tried to talk to the principal, he said he needed copies of Curtis's transcript. Curtis printed out a copy of the Berkeley unofficial transcript and gave it to him. Later the principal said that he need an official copy (why?).

In the meantime, other teachers noticed that the school had posted an ad in the newspaper that listed several open positions. Two of the positions no one knew were vacant, including Curtis's! In an email sent to all the faculty, the principal said that one teacher had decided to leave, though it hadn't been publicly announced before the ad appeared and that there were "credentials issues" with Curtis that he felt could be worked out, but that the listing was necessary to "protect the school." Never did he actually communicate directly with Curtis. Curtis heard through the grapevine that the principal was showing around some resumes for Curtis's job.

The whole thing has been very bizarre. The story is that all teachers are supposed to have masters degrees. But Curtis's friend from high school has only a B.A. and there is an arts teacher that doesn't even have that. There are also at least 2 other core subject teachers that left a Ph.D. program without a masters like Curtis did, but somehow only Curtis is getting this treatment.

As his friends at school have announced that they were leaving for better jobs at other schools, Curtis tells them, "hey, do they need physics teachers?" Well, one of the guys said, "actually, they do" and told them about Curtis. They asked for a resume and flew him to SoCal last week for an interview. Beckham wanted to go too and was sleeping on Curtis's pillow in the suitcase when we went in to finish packing. We kept everything quiet, not wanting to rock the boat at school. We didn't expect to hear anything for another couple of weeks because they were interviewing other people. When they called last night, they said that they had moved up one interview and were willing to cancel the rest, if Curtis takes the job. Curtis says that it's a big relief to feel wanted after being somewhat of a pariah at school. He's tired of students asking if he's going to be there next year and having to reply that he has no idea. At least now we know that he's got a job SOMEWHERE next year.