Jackie's Decision
"Jackie." a voice said.
Jackie looked up from her desk in her classroom and saw June Carson, the principal of the school where Jackie taught.
"Oh hi, come in." Jackie said as she set the yogurt down that she was eating.
Jackie's students were at lunch and so she was using the free time to organize a lesson that she was going to teach tomorrow.
"Are you busy? I can come back." June said.
"No, not at all." Jackie assured her.
"Oh good, because I wanted to ask you something and I wanted to give you a while to make a decision."
"Ok, what is it?" Jackie asked somewhat nervously, she wasn't sure she liked the way this sounded.
"Well Jackie, next year is going to have the largest kindergarten enrollment numbers that Kent Elementary has ever had. As you know, last year was also quite large."
Jackie shook her head.
"Well we are going to need another kindergarten teacher next year to accommodate all the new students, but there is still enough kindergarteners this year to warrant having three first grade teachers next year as well, and since you were nice enough to move to first grade this year I thought I would give you the choice of staying in first grade or moving back to kindergarten next year. Either way we are going to need to hire a new teacher but I need to know if I should advertise the job as a kindergarten or first grade position. The two kindergarten classrooms are pretty crowded this year but we had a lot of kindergarten students start school way after the year had started, had I known that was going to happen I would have just hired a new first grade teacher for this year instead of asking you to move."
Jackie was stunned, she didn't really know what to say. "Thank you" She managed.
It wasn't very often that teachers got to choose what grade they were going to teach.
June Carson saw the surprised look on Jackie's face and smiled.
"You don't have to tell me right now. Today is Monday, if you could let me know by Friday that would be great." June said as she got up and started towards the door.
"Thank you again." Jackie said.
"No problem, enjoy the rest of your lunch." June said before leaving.
Jackie had been a kindergarten teacher her entire teaching career but nearing the end of the previous school year Mrs. Carson had asked Jackie if she would be willing to teach first grade the following year to accommodate the increase in first graders. Jackie wasn't too thrilled about changing grades at first because kindergarten was all she had ever taught and she loved her two kindergarten teaching partners, they were two of her closest friends but Jackie had agreed to do it in fear of angering her principal. Jackie didn't know what to do, at the beginning of the year she would have jumped at the chance to go back to teaching kindergarten but now she really enjoyed teaching first grade. The students were able to do a little more in first grade then in kindergarten, especially when it came to their writing skills and Jackie loved that because she herself was passionate about writing. She often assigned her students what was called a free write assignment, which meant the students could write about anything they wanted as long as it was appropriate for school. Or sometimes she would give them a topic such as pets, family, or holidays to write about and the students had to write about the topic she gave them. Another thing she loved about teaching first grade this year was the fact that she got the opportunity to have many of the same children as she had had last year in kindergarten, she loved seeing the improvements they had made in just a short time, but obviously next year this will not be the case because she won't have had any of the now kindergarten students. Further complicating the decision was the fact that her two new first grade teaching partners had become her good friends as well. Also there was the fact that if she did move back to kindergarten she would have to switch classrooms again, which doesn't sound like a big deal but moving everything had been a huge hassle, it had taken nearly a solid week, and that was with a lot of people helping her. Jackie sighed, she didn't have a lot of time to ponder things right now though because her students were due back from lunch any minute.
"Mrs. Stokes, guess what?" One of her students said excitedly as he came rushing up to her after the class had come back from lunch.
"What Garrett?" Jackie asked, trying to sound just as excited as he did.
"A boy from the other class asked if he could sit by me at lunch and I said yes." He said.
"Good job Garrett, go grab a kind slip and put it in the bucket." Jackie said as she gave him a high five.
Garrett smiled and went and grabbed a slip.
A kind slip was a classroom management tool Jackie used. Whenever Jackie saw, or heard about one of her students doing something kind for someone else that student could put their name on a kind slip and drop it in the bucket on her desk and then on Friday afternoon right before the students went home for the weekend Jackie would sort the slips and whoever had the most kind slips in the bucket got to chose a prize from a small treasure chest that Jackie kept in the back of the classroom. Jackie kept the treasure chest stocked with pencils, fun little erasers, stickers, large suckers, and whatever other small yet inexpensive items she could find at the store.
That evening as Jackie sat down to dinner with her husband Nick and their two children Jackie told them about her principal's offer.
"I don't know what I should do. I keep going back and forth."
"I can't believe you didn't immediately say you'd be happy to go back to teaching kindergarten. You weren't at all happy about moving up to first grade." Nick reminded her with a smile.
"I know, but now I actually love it. I guess the thing I hated most about leaving kindergarten was the fact that I didn't think I would get all the adorable little stories that they always told me, but I was totally wrong, I still get those stories in first grade, and I'm so glad, it makes my day. It's one of the best things about teaching." Jackie sighed, this decision was much harder then she anticipated it should be.
"What do you think I should do Jazz?" she asked as she looked at her two year old little girl.
Jasmine was busy fighting with a pea that did not seem to want to go on her spoon very bad.
Jasmine looked up at Jackie "Home" Jasmine said.
Jackie smiled "I wish I could stay home with you and Houston, but unless daddy gets a 35,000 dollar raise I don't think that's going to happen."
Nick laughed "I'll talk to Russell and see what he says." He said with a grin.
Jackie laughed "Yeah and do me a favor, when you ask him that, bring a video camera, I want to see his facial expression."
Nick laughed and then stuck another piece of his steak in his mouth. The truth was as much as Jackie would love to be a stay at home mom, she loved her job and she adored her students, and also Jackie's mother loved babysitting Jasmine and Houston while Jackie worked and Jasmine and Houston enjoyed getting to see their grandma every day, they got spoiled rotten.
"Nicky what should I do?" she asked.
"You have to make that decision, I can't make it for you." He said with a smile.
"Big help" Jackie said sarcastically.
"Aren't I though?" Nick said with a smirk.
Jackie just rolled her eyes.
Friday morning finally rolled around, Jackie walked to the principal's office and before knocking on the closed door she took a deep breath.
"Come in." a voice called after she had knocked on the door.
"Hi, I've made a decision." Jackie said as she did her best to sound cheerful.
"Oh good, what is it?"
Jackie took another deep breath and then she said "I've decided that I want to continue teaching first grade."
"Oh ok, sounds good, I will advertise for a new kindergarten teacher for next year then." Mrs. Carson said with a smile.
Jackie returned the smile
"Thank you again for giving me the option." She said.
"No problem." Mrs. Carson said.
Jackie gave her one last smile and then left her office.
As Jackie walked down the hallway to her classroom, she felt a weight being lifted off her shoulders; she was glad that she had finally made up her mind. As she drove home that night she smiled, she couldn't wait to tell Nick what her decision had been because she literally had not decided until that morning.
She pulled into the driveway and a thought crossed her mind, she grinned, she was going to play a little prank on Nick.
"Hi, what did you decide?" Nick asked the second she walked in the door.
"I quit" she said. Nick spit out the water that he had had in his mouth.
"You what?" he asked with his eyes so wide Jackie thought they were going to pop out of his head.
"I decided that Jasmine was right, I should be a stay at home mom and so I told her that this will be my last year at Kent Elementary." She said as she smiled sweetly at him.
"But Jackie we..we can't, af..afford that." He stuttered.
"We'll manage." She said as she smiled once again and then turned and started walking upstairs.
When she got to only the third step she turned back around to face him.
"Gottcha" she said.
"Huh?" he asked as if he didn't hear her correctly.
"I didn't really quit, I was just messing with you. What I really told her was that I wanted to continue to teach first grade."
Nick relaxed and then scowled at her.
"That was a horrible thing to do to me. I am so getting you back for that Jackie." He hollered as she quickly disappeared up the steps.
Jackie laughed as she went into the master bedroom and grabbed her bathrobe and then went into the bathroom, got undressed, and then she hopped in the shower. As the hot water beat down on her she fell into a relaxing state, which felt like heaven after the stressful day she'd experienced. Even though it had been a tough day overall she realized how blessed she was, she had a wonderful husband, two children that meant the world to her, and a job she loved. As far as she was concerned life couldn't get much better.