they will deliver the massive stack of resignations to the superintendent's door
June 13, 2003, 12:05 am

I don't like myself very much today.

I did something that I didn't want to do because I'm fighting "the man".

I resigned as the Theatre Co. advisor for my school. Every coach, advisor, teacher in AACo is resigning from any athletics and/or extracurricular activites to protest our a) double work load as a result of the new superintendent's schedule and b) decrease in salary.

I sobbed as I signed that paper. Literally, in front of my fourth period class in the outstretched hands of my Athletic Director, I cried. "Jess," he said, "I've coached baseball at this school for 25 years. I know, I know how you feel."

I spent this entire year building a program that was going to DO something next year. I spent this entire year recruiting, directing, sobbing, stressing, and loving my kids for all their flaws and their cracking voices; I spent this entire year spreading the word about how drama would be the next COOL thing at the school; our drama program for the first time EVER has the highest enrollment for theatre arts classes in the fall in the county; I spent the entire year building a non-existent program that would DO something for students, and I just went and threw it all away because some asshole at the Board has his hands in our pockets and is forcing me to trash my entire closet of open-toed shoes.

I do not feel noble or righteous; I feel like trash. Somehow I thought that knowing that I was doing the right thing would feel good; I don't think I am doing the right thing. I think I'm copping to the pressure that my colleagues are putting on me to make a statement. The irony is thick: I don't want to make a stand, therefore, I am making a stand.

*sigh*