UncertaintyAmid curricular changes, reorganization of classes andgrades, and budgetary crunches, several of the teachershad seen their teaching assignments and scheduleschange. Tammy described this uncertainty as her mainstressor. She had seen her district cut 6th grade band,eliminate one band director position, and schedule herclasses such that she had roughly 10 minutes to get fromone building to another. Tammy also mentioned that thestress from unexpected issues coming up had her at herbreaking point:Right before spring break, kids are being squirrels atschool, so I’m dealing with that all day. And I get an emailsaying that what we’re trying to do to fit the kidsfor instruments for next year, they’re not going to let usdo it the way that we want to. … And then I found outthat my supportive principal is not going to be at ourbuilding next year and I just came home and sobbed[laughing]). My husband is hugging me, I’m like “I don’tknow if I can do this anymore.” And I think I’ve been atthat point this year more often than I’ve been in the previous12. I’m trying to get some things into place fornext year as far as making sure that things are set to gowith the 6th graders. … But if I feel next year like I dothis year, I can’t imagine continuing past that.Josie talked about similarly stressful changes in herteaching assignment. In addition to frequently being laidoff and subsequently recalled right before the start of theschool year, she had been asked to teach “computermusic” without any curriculum and had seen her classesbe constantly split and combined:Every year there’s a change, and since I’ve been there—in fact this year, they listened to me and give me achance to just see what I can do at the high school witha little stability. Because every year they’ll decide “we’recombining your classes.” So we’ll have 60 kids in oneclass and then the next year they’ll decide that’s toomany and they’ll split the classes. Every year since I’vebeen at the high school it’s been something different