Welcome to my blog!
My name is Rachel and I live out in a peaceful small town in Northern California with my husband and 3 happy dogs. I work as a special education teacher in a small school district close to our home. I earned my MA in education and began teaching right away! The students quickly helped me understand that teaching was the right decision for me!
We moved to this small town a few years ago and it was the best move I’d ever made! Moving to a small town was a quite a transition for me at first, since I have lived in large cities my whole life. There are vast differences. Instead of constant traffic on the way to work, there are peaceful roads with very few other cars. Instead of seeing building after building, there are cows, pigs, goats, and deer! TONS of deer!!! Imagine that you are used to seeing stray dogs and cats outside when you take out the trash, and now you see families of deer at your mailbox. Bambi’s EVERYWHERE! It’s very different sight for a city girl but beautiful.
Small town school districts operate differently than large districts. Many employees in a small school district wear many “hats”. In addition to being a special education teacher, I am also the special education director and the coach of many different school sports teams. If you work in a large district, this can be hard to imagine. Large school districts have the funding to provide jobs for every position. Small school districts don’t always have the funding and instead truly embrace the strengths of their employees. I admire this! Working as a special education teacher/director/coach in this district keeps me extremely busy. Time management is a MUST!
Since my first year of teaching, I have been thinking up ideas and creating resources to help with time management and life in a special ed classroom. If I had some of these things, my life could have been a bit easier when starting my teaching career. I created a blog and opened a Teachers Pay Teachers store to share my strategies and resources with all special ed teachers, general ed teachers, first year teachers, etc.
Wishing you all the best in your careers!
Rachel*