So in-service starts in a week and a sizable number of my corps remains unplaced, including me. There are about 90 people still without positions, of 175. It’s so frustrating especially while I sit through sessions that I know would be helpful if I had a placement, a subject, a grade level, but the landscape in Memphis is such that I could be teaching anything to 6-8 graders and math to 9-12 graders. It’s definitely been a tough process and my attitude is really in need of an adjustment. I’m going to work on that this weekend. They still assure us we will be placed and we have received lots of information about the placement fund (which funds 90% of our salary for the first 40 days of school).

We just finished the first 3 days of orientation, or round 0. We have 8 days of it (which seems much longer than Atlanta (4) and Delta (2). I’m not sure what the differences are but I’m interested to know what ya’ll worked on. We are talking about visions, goals, and standards right now. The process of breaking down standards really interests me, but without a placement it’s annoying. I was working on Algebra II today because I know if I was placed into a geometry, algebra I or lower classroom I could definitely be ready to teach that, but Algebra II needs some review.

Charlotte, NYC, Seattle folks, how’s placement going out there (out in the world, as my ED would say)?