Still Employed!!!!

We always thought that being teachers made us safe from losing our jobs. With the economy in the tank, and the state legislature making significant cuts from what they normally fund schools, Garry and I were both notified on May 1 that we may not have a job this coming year. In Washington, it is strictly based on seniority, and we got a notice that we may be impacted by the Reduction In Force (RIF). On the 15th of May we got the letter that we had in fact been "RIFed." We felt okay about the situation because we are specialists, and fortunately for us, no one else in the RIF pool was certified in music. So provided they still offered band and choir, we thought we'd eventually be okay, but they don't legally have to notify you until September 15. So we could potentially go through the summer not knowing for sure what was going to happen.

However, this last week, there was an emergency school board meeting to decide which cuts were going to be made. The members of the school board along with the superintendent decided that among the cuts, teachers should not be on the list, and re-instated all of the teachers who had been previously RIFed. We both received our contracts this week, and are happy that we will be gainfully employed in the fall.

We were quite relieved, because now we REEEEEEALLLY want to buy our house, and it would have been incredibly disappointing if we were denied our loan because we didn't know for sure that we would have a job in the fall.

So we are moving full steam ahead on the house, and crossing our fingers that we don't actually close on the house and have the baby the same week!!!!