I have been a middle school teacher for almost 7 years. I spent most of my time in a school district, let’s call them District A, that had an excellent benefits package. They better have, the starting salary was $53,000. I’m noting this because I was blissfully unaware of the reality of actually, seriously needing good health insurance and generous sick leave. Not that everyone doesn’t need access to good health care, but, you know, capitalism really warps the mind into thinking “never getting sick” = “I never need to go to the doctor.”
Then I actually, seriously needed good insurance and generous sick leave.
In late 2022, after 10 months of throwing up every day, having difficulty going to the bathroom, and constant pain, I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I don’t want to talk about endometriosis today, but I will say it s u c k s .
I want to talk about my current school district, District B for bullshit. I started out the year with 3 personal days and 5 days of sick leave. Right away I didn’t think that was enough, coming from a district that gave 5 personal days and 2 weeks of sick leave, which accumulated biweekly and rolled over every year I worked there. When I left District A, I had about 2 weeks of sick leave left, which, sadly I had to forfeit. Anyway, I tried to stay positive in my new school and comforted myself with the fact that I’m healthy and can take pretty decent care of myself, so it should be fine. And then I used up 3 sick days before Thanksgiving.
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