maternity leave is just a fancy term for "working from home"

alright...since this blog is private, i am going to vent about work right now. this week i have learned that maternity leave is just a fancy term for "working from home". ugh. part of being a teacher (a good one at least) is to be prepared for when you do take time off. we have to find a sub, write lesson plans, and in my case, create about 70 documents of class schedules and student schedules. i take full responsibilty for this and do it with a smile. it is part of the job.

now on to my peeves of the week:
1. i created my class master schedule last weekend. for those of you who don't know, it is a schedule based off the school master schedule telling us where all my kids (different grade levels), aides, and myself are to be every minute of the day. it is a task. a task which i enjoy in my own OCD way. ;) i had it complete--ready to go. i came to find out on monday that the school master had changed. when that changes, so does mine. i got it edited and up to school on tuesday thinking i was finished. nope. i found out last nite that they had changed the schedule AGAIN. so first thing this morning i edited mine and got it to school this afternoon with baby in tow. annoying.

2. from my master schedule, i have to make individual schedules for each of my students. this is where most of the work comes in. to have schedules for each student, monday thru friday, it totals to about 70 seperate documents that have to be laminated, cut, and velcroed. so you guessed it...when the dang master schedule changed, i had to edit each of this schedules not once but twice. not an easy task with a 9 week old baby. what is so irritating about this is that the person who comes up with the school schedule does not see the big picture. this person fails to see how every little change that is made affects different classroom. school starts monday--the schedule should be ready and finalized before thursday nite. again, annoying.

3. why were there documents needing to be faxed from my school to another district on my desk this morning? i am on maternity leave!! yes, it was about my former student but ANY special ed personnel can take care of this. yep, you guessed it-annoying.

4. last nite was meet the teacher nite. obviously i didn't go because, again, i am on maternity leave. at the end of last school year, i let each individual parent know i was going to be out until Sep 28. i also sent home a big letter explaining who would be subbing and who to contact if a question arose. tell me why i had parents there last nite asking where i was and looking irritated when they found out. according to some reliable sources, the reactions on their faces were as if they were saying "um didn't she already have the baby? why is she out?". teachers have lives outside of the school building!! ugh. so annoying.

vent over. i feel better now. thanks for your time. :)