Frustration

I've been in meetings since Thursday to get acquainted with some of the programs and policies of the school district I'll be teaching in this year. Instead of feeling well-prepared and full of hope for the upcoming school year, I have lots of questions and concerns. It's an urban district, but that's nothing new for me; I taught in an urban district five years ago. But I'm getting the sense that things are kind of disorganized at the administrative level in this district. They haven't even had me sign my contract yet.

And I'm really disappointed in the lack of technology that is available for my school. I have one computer in my classroom, but I have been told explicitly that it is NOT for student use; only the teacher (me) is allowed to use it. We have a mobile laptop cart for our building, but the returning teachers have already told me that that it's not worth checking out, because half the time the computers don't work. How very sad. I would imagine that many of these kiddos don't get the experience of using a computer at home. If they don't get it at school, where are they going to get it?

I got really jealous when I was talking to some of the teachers from another elementary building--same district--because apparently they have three computers in each classroom, plus a TV monitor that is connected to one computer so that a teacher can display things to the whole class. Why does their building have so much more "stuff" than ours?

All of this is very disconcerting for me, seeing as how I'm working on my MA in Educational Technology. It would appear that if I hope to make good use of that degree, I may not have much of a future in this district.

To top it all off, I got a phone call from a principal in a suburban district with more resources, better technology, better parent support, etc. She wanted to know if I was still looking for a teaching position, but I had to tell her no. Technically, since I haven't signed my contract yet, I could go somewhere else, but I would feel guilty for leaving my current district. I won't lie--I was tempted, and I did chat with her for a little bit. Does that make me a bad person, or a lazy person, to prefer to teach in a more affluent district like that? I think maybe it does.