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The political answer was it just seemed like a good time for a hard reset. The reality is more in line with this:
1. Girlfriend desperately wanted to move as she was pretty much unable to deal with conflict in the workplace. Not sure how moving will solve this but she was miserable to be around so if nothing else I can disappear and go fishing for a day or two at my new place.
2. My area had really high Covid-positives so the region has been basically shut off for the past year. This place kind of sucks if you are stuck here for more than a year. We had a mandatory 14-day quarantine until maybe early March even though all teachers had the option to get vaccinated in December and January. I actually got my second shot on January 15.
3. We went distance learning last March when there was 1 case in the state of Alaska. In August we were told we would start hybrid and a decision on closing would be based on each school. The district is made up of like 21 towns and the district is basically Ohio. We had one case of community spread in August and effectively shut down until Mid March. The district spent millions on CARES ACT money creating an intranet to provide some sort of online service to each student in the entire district. We were told it would be working in September. It didn't go online until December. We were never told why. I only had 18 out of 58 kids pass in semester 1. We delivered weekly lessons using keynote since we are an Apple district. Each Wednesday kids/parents would come to school, airdrop completed keynotes, and then pick up new ones. I basically worked 1 day a week.
4. In March many rural districts, around the state including districts surrounding my district, allowed basketball to compete. I had 12 seniors and we were expected to compete for a state title this year. Our local school board approved sports as did the district school board. We submitted travel plans for our regional and state competition to the following school board since they had to approve it. A member proposed shutting down all sports until we are in "yellow" and it passed. Yellow means less than 5 cases, district-wide, over a 7 day period and they all have to be travel-related. All 12 of my seniors had been vaccinated and/or already had Covid. All coaches were vaccinated as well. My town had 10 cases for the month of March and over 60% are vaccinated.
5. We now are sort of in hybrid learning except there's 0 direct instruction. I have 10 seniors who come 4 days a week. They sit in my classroom for 5 hours and work on keynotes. They eat lunch in my room are basically restricted from leaving. This type of learning is expected for first semester next year. We are only allowed to have 7th graders come for 4 hours on Wednesday mornings and 8th graders can attend school for 4 hours after the 7th graders leave. On Wednesday there are no high schoolers in the building.
5. The hiring process went pretty quick and I was surprised to find out the district I'm going to, which is right outside of Anchorage, basically paid the same even though it had a drastically cheaper cost of living.
6. My high school is losing 8 out of 20 teachers and most were friends that I fished with during the summer. Basically, any sort of boat access would be gone. In Wasilla, I can basically fish every day as the nearest stream is 30 minutes away.
TLDR: My district and community now sucks.
