Dear Mr. Layoff Notice,

I know you’re just doing your job, but did you know that by doing your job, you’ve gone and eliminated mine?  Did you know that 14 years of teaching experience has just been thrown down the toilet?  Did you know that because of you, I no longer have the money to pay my bills, or buy gas for my car?  Did you know that because of you, there are countless students that are going to go uneducated, or at least not educated to the fullest of their abilities? 

Thanks to you, my kids will have to go without.  While your bosses, the so-called “big wigs” in the school district, are being paid well over six figures, have countless assistants and secretaries, and get a free car and stipend, I’m barely able to buy groceries to feed my children.  Yet, they are allowed to keep their job.  They probably don’t even like their job.  I loved mine. 

Now, I’m sitting here, writing this letter to you, trying to figure out how my husband and I are going to make it on unemployment.  Instead of getting up in the morning and going to do something I loved, I’m worrying about whether I can pay my electricity and sewage.  Instead of making up lesson plans, I’m sending out resumes to every school district in the tri-state area.  Instead of teaching the Pythagorean Theorem to my students, I’m trying to find something else I’m skilled at that maybe I could do for a profession.  Instead of smiling at students passing by, I’m smiling at countless people interviewing me for positions that aren’t available. 

How am I supposed to show you to my husband, who already works so hard to support us?  How am I supposed to tell him that I am no longer allowed to contribute to the support of our family?  While you sit all cushy in your leather chair and designer suit over at the board, I’m scrounging around secondhand stores, trying to find clothes that fit my children. 

And to think…there used to be a time when being a teacher was a revered profession.  When teachers were looked upon as indispensable. Apparently, that time is no longer. 

Signed,

A teacher, age 34