By Angela Marre
I stood in the empty classroom surrounded by piles of boxes, the walls bare except for the crucifix hanging over the chalkboard. The room still seemed to echo faintly with laughter from Halloween parades and reactions to the Magic Tree House books I had read to my students. But as the memory of that laughter faded and all was silent, I couldn’t help but wonder: what was I going to do now?
I’d spent the last nine years teaching second grade at a local parochial school, and had thoroughly enjoyed my time there. But everything had changed in 2010 when it was announced that the remaining parochial schools in the city would be combined into one academy. This meant more than half of the teachers would be without jobs, as we couldn’t all go to the new school.
Angela Marre has been teaching in the Boston area for 20 years. She earned her Bachelor's degree in English from the University of Massachusetts. She has one Master's degree in Elementary Education from Eastern Nazarene College and a second Master's in English as a Second Language from Cambridge College.
