As a professional singer and actor, I have had a total of 33 jobs in 17 years. I have worked at least 3 jobs or more simultaneously in addition to performing over the years. Each week, I will discuss one of my former or current jobs. My twenty-seventh job was 5th Grade Teacher at P.S. 202 Ernest S. Jenkyns in Brooklyn.
Getting the Job
In November 2021, I began applying for the NYS Public School system. I got accepted into the teacher pool. I interviewed at a few schools in-person. When I interviewed at P.S. 202, I observed my co-teacher’s class and then he hired me. Surprisingly, he did not ask me to complete a demo lesson, which is unusual.
The Experience
My first day at P.S. 202 was December 22nd, two days before Christmas break. On my first day with my co-teacher and the class, I was exposed to COVID. The next day, while I was getting ready for work, my co-teacher calls to tell me that she tested positive for COVID. My co-teacher and the class were required to stay home. My co-teacher was a bit sick on my first day of work, but I did not think that it was COVID.
Since I had also been exposed to COVID, I thought that I would need to stay home as well. Coincidentally, I was cat sitting for the Art teacher at Elm, so I did not expose my roommates. However, the principal told me that I needed to come in to work unless I had symptoms. I subbed for other classes instead of my assigned class for the day before Christmas break.
COVID
On January 3rd, the day I was supposed to return to school, I developed COVID symptoms. I had the symptoms for a week and a half. When I returned to school, my co-teacher and I had a disagreement on how to do parallel teaching and guided reading. After this conversation, I was pretty discouraged and decided to resign. At this point, this was my third school in a year and a half and I was over all of it. My co-teacher and I got along well after this, but it was too late.
Quitting
I sent a letter of resignation on MLK day 2022. At public schools, you are required to give a month’s notice. I gave 30-day notice and tried to rescind my resignation, but the principal told me that the DOE already processed it. During the 30 days, I tried to get all of my data for my graduate school courses.
However, once I stopped working at the school, my professor told me that I could not continue my courses even though I had ALL of the material and data to complete my degree. In June, I did come back to P.S. 202 to attend the students 5th Grade graduation.