My new job!

As some of you may have seen on Facebook, thanks to my super awesome husband, I have a new job.

A really fantastic new job.

Pretty much the best job I could hope for in this crazy economy in Siskiyou County, and given the fact that classroom teaching probably isn't going to happen for me in the next 10 years or so.

I will be working as the Gear Up Site Coordinator at Jackson Street School. The Gear Up program is a college-prep program out of U.C. Davis designed to target ALL students (not just those deemed "in need") for college-prep advising, workshops, and activities. The seven-year program starts in middle school and proceeds through high school and into the freshman year of college. For me specifically, I will be starting with the entire 6th and 7th grade classes at Jackson Street School and following them for seven years, through their freshman year of college. This means I will be at Jackson Street with the students for three years and at Yreka High School with the same students for the next four years.

This program is brand new to Siskiyou County middle schools and high schools, and has been selected to begin in Weed and Yreka only. With the program being new to our area, I am looking forward to being part of the development and implementation, as well as the goal-setting and identification of needs for our student population. It is not a "cookie-cutter" program, so what works in Shasta or Tehama counties may not work in Siskiyou County, and it is quite probably that the needs of the student populations are entirely different. Siskiyou County is notorious for lacking a "college-minded" mentality, and hopefully this program will help promote a healthier college-bound mentality among students.

I am absolutely thrilled to begin working with this program, and words do not express the gratitude I feel in being selected for this position! I will be sad to say goodbye to Grenada Elementary on Friday afternoon, but I can't help but look to next week with nervous anticipation.

Here's to 2012, already blowing 2011 out of the water!