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Consolidation

In my 8 years of teaching in Oakland, I was lucky to never have my grade level changed in the middle of the school year, but I had plenty of co-workers who did.  The schools try to staff for the kids who will come but they don't actually know who is coming and in which grades.   So every year, teachers would spend hundreds of dollars and countless days on getting their rooms ready, only to have to switch in mid-October.

Here's a very brief story about it and another teacher's thoughts, very well explained.

My Little Sister's teacher is being consolidated and she LOVES her teacher.  I happen to know that the teacher she's getting is very very good but she's spent 6 weeks bonding with the teacher she has and starting over is scary.
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Anonymous said…
A certain child of mine had a K teacher she loved. They'd asked Mrs. W to stay one more year even though she wanted to retire. She retired at Christmas. A young first yr. teacher was hired, but fell apart, cuz the kids were heartbroken at losing their 1st teacher. The second sub made great headway...the K's began to trust her. She applied for the job, wonderful we all thought. I guess her experience made her too expensive. Then came the next teacher. I saw her grab a kid by his shirt and yell, "When will you follow directions and stop running around!?" Never, I thought; two heartbreaks in one year for 5 year olds? Don't know that they could recover from that kind of grief.
1:26 PM
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