I'm teaching "pre-IB" Geometry and Algebra II. They're "pre-IB" because the IB program doesn't officially start in high school until the 11th grade, but they're courses that only IB students may enroll in, and are expected to be very rigorous, preparing the kids for their actual IB courses the following year. I'm very happy with that.
However, those are 9th grade courses, and the new rule is that all teachers of 9th or 10th graders must teach only 9th or 10th graders. So the rest of my schedule is Standard Geometry, Honors Geometry and Algebra I. Meaning I have 5 preps (i.e., different courses I have to prepare for, grade papers for, etc.). In truth, the Honors Geometry course and Standard Geometry are really essentially the same, so it's "only" 4 preps. For comparison, every other math teacher in the school has 2 preps, with the exception of Mrs. D, who has 3. Mrs. D has been teaching for 33 years.
Also, because I'm teaching IB, I'm being moved to a new academy (the school within a school that we receive grant money for). My current Assistant Principal is great with teachers and very strict with kids that are sent out of teachers' rooms for misbehaving. My new Assistant Principal is very strict with teachers and incredibly lenient with kids. The teachers who work for him universally want to be in another academy, because their discipline problems are uncontrollable.
Because I'm in the new academy, I will be moved to a new room, about 50 yards from the main office, out of the portables, which are a fairly long way off the main campus. So every administrator who ever visits the school goes first to the wing that I'll be in.
Because I'm in the new wing, my lunch schedule will go from being last lunch (served at the reasonable hour of 12:15) to first lunch, which begins at 10:45. AM. In the morning. You know, the time that normal people are rushing to McDonalds, hoping they haven't stopped serving Egg & Sausage Biscuits yet.
I have an undergraduate degree in Math, a masters in Math, and a masters in Business Administration. There's a new course for seniors this year that is called "Advanced Algebra with Business Applications." You'd think I might be qualified to teach that. Nope... I've got Algebra I, where we teach kids how to solve equations like 3x + 1 = 7. A new teacher, with a degree in Math Education, will be teaching Advanced Algebra with Business Applications.
All this because my principal believes 9th and 10th grades are the most important, because they're the ones who take the standardized tests the school gets graded on. So because he thinks I'm terrific, I have a terrible schedule in a terrible room with a terrible administrator. I'm thinking I should key his car or something; I'd probably be teaching AP Calculus next year.
