Yeah, I know, it's still July but. . .

I broke my own rules and invited teachers for the weekend at our lake house. In anticipation, I had a school nightmare:

One of my English colleagues (no longer employed at my school but apparently still teaching in the dream realm) came to me aghast. Her impending fall schedule indicated that she had only four of five classes to teach, and she was worried about the effect an incomplete schedule would have on her employment.

I ran to the person in charge who told the other department chairs and me that there were 47 of 80 teachers with "holes" in their schedules because of the new "norms." Norms, for the laymen out there, are class size numbers, which at this point in the budget seem to average 36 students per class minimum (probably more in non-magnet areas, and mine is a magnet school).

I awoke after yelling--either out loud in my dream or deeply in my own head--"THEN WHY NOT LOWER THE NORMS SO EVERYONE CAN HAVE THE CLASSES HE OR SHE HAS BEEN HIRED TO TEACH?! What I do not understand is how we can push students around and unreasonably crowd classes in order to keep the "norms" and fire 'extra' teachers. Why not put the students first--as all administrators insist they do!--and instead lower norms so that all the teachers we have on board for the fall will have smaller classes and will keep all the classes they are contracted to teach!"

I awoke angry but reassured that I am clearly a NOT-a-bureaucrat in the land of bureaucrats, but this vision disparity is starting to . . . . well, it was only a dream, I know. . .