Being nice...

I have to stop being so nice.

Last week, the staff for my classroom found out there needed to be someone to ride the bus with one of our students. The aide she had last year is no longer available. I was asked if I could ride along with her, since I live right up the street.

I said as long as it didn't affect my pay & insurance, okay.

So last night I find out they want to cut 7.5 hours from my regular pay and have me do 10 hours a week as a bus aide. They will allow me to continue to get insurance even though that puts me under the 'full-time' cutoff for insurance while I'm doing this. And even though they say I'm okay - this is a government agency - I can just see some auditor looking at my paystub and saying "she doesn't qualify for insurance" and bingo - I'm off the insurance.

But that's not even the biggie. There's about a $10/hour discrepancy between my regular pay & the bus aide pay. So I'd be LOSING $55 for the additional 3.5 hours I'm working a week. Not only that, I'm missing out on any meetings before school starts in the morning, which is where most of our training takes place. We have 3 new kids this year with their own histories of their complex needs, and I really would like to know how we work with them!

Now they are trying to see if they can allow me my regular pay during the time I'd normally be in my classroom, and then bus aide pay for the additional time I'm on the bus. Personally, I don't see the school district being able to cough up the additional funds for a bus aide (albeit a highly qualified one).

Then again, I didn't sign anything, and I can just quit if things don't work for me.

I was only trying to be nice.