I work in Paulding County, which is considered a large suburban district at P.B. Ritch Middle School, a Title I and STEM school. Interestingly, I didn’t so much choose this district as it chose me. It is not the district I was raised in, where I live, or where my own kids attended school. Instead, it’s where I was randomly placed when I was student teaching. As my internship year wrapped up, I realized I wanted to stay because I enjoyed working in a growing district that was still small enough that teachers had a voice, and more importantly, I loved that it offered a multi-year teacher induction program, which proved to me that it was supportive and invested in its teachers. Ultimately, I was lucky, a position opened at my school, allowing me to remain with the same team, in the same grade level, and on the same hallway where I had completed my student teaching. Sometimes you just have to trust where the process takes you.
