Corner Canyon High School

Last post was in 2010 -- Life continues, but here is a new post. I began working at Brighton High School in the fall of 1998. I began in October or early November and I was a part time aide to a blind teacher named Lucy Jensen. I read papers and written home work assignments out loud to her, took attendance, went through her mail, corrected assignments and proctored tests. At the end of that year she retired and I lost that job. However, I signed up to be a substitute teacher and began substituting in September. In October I began a long term substitute position for Connie Christensen, the AP English teacher at Brighton. That was a wonderful, demanding job and was such great fun and hard work. I thought after that experience that I would like to teach high school and looked into what it would take to certify as an English teacher. But it proved impractical. When I finished the long term, sub job, I began working in the main office at Brighton, still part time and stayed there until the end of the year. That job ended as well, but in the fall I was hired by Terry Price, the CTE (Career and Technical Education) Coordinator at Brighton and I worked at that job for 13 years. In the spring of 2012, the secretary position at Brighton High School opened up. I had been toying with the idea of working full time and this opportunity seemed ideally suited to me. I knew the people, I was familiar with the operation of the Counseling Center, it was at the school I knew and loved and it was full time work. I applied and got the job. I began working in this new capacity at the end of July in 2012. I thought that I knew what was going on, but discovered that it was different and challenging in ways that my CTE job had not been. However, generally speaking I enjoyed what I was doing and the people that I was working with. There was one disappointing development. When the dust settled on the hire, I discovered that the position was a demotion and a pay cut. I called the district and was told that they were grandfathering out the secretary position. It had been a Lane 2, but new hires would be assigned Lane 1. I was kind of bitter about this—but it was fait accompli. I ended up making about the same amount full time as I had been making at ¾ time at my previous job, maybe slightly more. But I was getting benefits and there was a small retirement starting to accrue—so I just pressed on. Allyson Hanks had been the head counselor at Brighton High School for as many years as I had been there. She left the year that I started as secretary to be on the development team for the new Corner Canyon High School. In the spring she came to me and encouraged me to apply as the secretary to the counseling center at that high school. At first I dismissed it out of hand—I was two miles away from Brighton, I liked the individual counselors I was working with, I had been a Brighton for years and years, it was my boundary school, my children had attended there, I knew the faculty and staff and it would be a lateral move. I couldn’t get excited about it. Then Allyson came to me and said that they were listing the Counseling Center Secretary job as a Lane 4 and that I should apply. That would be a significant difference in pay for the same job and it was an offer that I couldn’t resist. I wrote a request to transfer to my principal, Charisse Hilton. I explained that I had taken a pay cut and a demotion to work as the Counseling Center secretary and with an offer for a Lane 4, I felt it was an opportunity that I should investigate. She emailed me back and said that she had signed my request for transfer, but that all secretarial jobs at different schools were at the same Lane and pay scale so there would not be competition for employees between schools. She assured me that the job at Corner Canyon would not be a Lane 4, but a Lane 1 as it was a Brighton. I forwarded that email to Allyson. It turned out that Charisse was partly right. Eventually the Corner Canyons job was listed at a Lane 2—this was a surprise for me because in truth, my job at Brighton has been posted at the wrong land. I should have been a Lane 2 all year, but no one at Brighton was minding the store. They had known that I took a pay cut and a demotion, but no one had gone to bat from me and my own efforts had been fruitless. Allyson did go to the HR advisor over this area and they took a look at my hire sheets and discovered that in fact I was being underpaid and at the wrong lane. I got emails on that day from Charisse and from the secretary at HR advising me that I had been paid at the wrong level and that I was being promoted and they were going to give me the difference in pay for the seven months that I had been working below my pay grade. Interestingly, it was not my counseling staff or my local principal that advocated for me. It was Allyson, my friend, former colleague, and potentially future employer who went to them and said Kathie is a Lane 1—why? It was Allyson who took and interest and a concern for my situation. I was very grateful. It was for this reason that I began to seriously entertain the idea of joining the Corner Canyon High School Counseling staff and the secretary. I knew that it was going to be a lateral move, but I was encouraged by Allyson, by Sally Matsen and Dina Kohler (counselors at Brighton)—by staff and faculty at Brighton who were also leaving to go to Corner Canyon and so I continued to further my application. I submitted the paper work and then signed up for an interview time. At the interview, the vibe given off by the interview team—Mary Bailey, Brian McGill, Allyson Hanks, Wayne Dittmore and Kathy Hilton, was so warm and inviting and I felt so good about the prospect of working for them that I couldn’t resist accepting the offer which was extended to me about 1½ hours after the interview was complete.

As the year ended, I had a few regrets about leaving Brighton, but as I have assumed the spot at Corner Canyon High School in the beautiful and spacious Counseling Center here, I have had no regrets about the change. And I listen to book-on-CD as I drive to work—so the extra drive time about fifteen minutes more than the six minutes it used to take, is quite pleasant.