Andrea Goes Part Time

I found out in June that I am going to be able to job share my first grade position with a fellow teacher in my building! I have actually prayed for this situation to work out since Ellie was born and the timing finally became right for that to happen.

Carmen, a 2nd grade teacher that I work with, recently became pregnant and the two of us were discussing how to balance work and family. We threw out the idea of job sharing and the more we talked about it realized how good of a match we were to job share a position together. To make a long story short, our principal finally agreed after seeing how compatible both Carmen and I are. So, it's official! Carmen and I will job share a first grade position. I will teach the morning part of the day, consisting of literacy and social studies. Carmen will teach the afternoon part of the day consisting of math and science. We will each work Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays and alternate Wednesdays, as our district has early release Wednesdays to cover parent conferences, district training and planning times.

Carmen and I will job share the month of September, then I will teach full days for October, November and December while Carmen is on maternity leave. We will resume our job sharing in January and carry that out for the remainder of the school year. We both foresee job sharing for several years.

I need to get up to school this summer and purge some of my school supplies as I need to make room for Carmen to move in!

I can really see God's hand in allowing for this to happen. Carmen and I share very similar philosophies of teaching and curriculum. Our classroom organization is also very much the same. She and I both have (or will have!) young families and although we want to spend time with our children, we enjoy teaching very much and don't want to give that up. Job sharing seems to be the perfect fit for this time in our lives. Our principal really had a change of heart to allow us to job share. Aaron's new job allows for me to be home part time, even with the cost of childcare. I am so excited about this new chapter!