Well, I don't know if teachers ever think of these things (I had some spectacularly BAD teachers in my life, not even counting the one who had a nervous breakdown in front of our 5th grade class....and then was back to teach the SAME GROUP for 6th grade), but how would you serve kids the best?
Are you a terrific Spanish teacher? I had one lackluster one (who was vague enough about one of the tenses (the little used one that I'm forgetting right now) that I got every single question on a quiz wrong (I was an honors student who grew up around people speaking Spanish every day including my best friend's family, and I shouldn't have been so confused)). Then I had one great one (native Spanish speaker) that I took classes from the next 3 years.
When i was in HS in California, you had to take a math class every HS year, and then I went on to Minor in it in college, so I've had a couple math teachers. There was the surprisingly good one who was otherwise the baseball coach (though he was also distractingly cute and young for a 10th grade girl to learn easily from, LOL). Then there was the head of the math department in college who was the WORST teacher in the universe, and who thought it was appropriate to have questions about the Beatles as the ONLY extra credit questions on his exams (nothing math related). I failed Linear Algebra from him that year and had to take it again, and got a B- from a different teacher (it was the last to get the minor so I really had to re-take it).
You could CERTAINLY find a way to include dance lessons in your Math classes.
So if you're a better, more inspirational, math teacher than you are a Spanish teacher, that's on the side of switching.
When you first said "rural" school I was in favor of you staying, because rural kids get such cruddy teachers in general. There are brights spots every so often, like at my one-room schoolhouse in the mountains above Cupertino, CA where I spent my 4th grade year. Kindgergarten teacher, 1-3 teacher, and 4-6 teacher/principal (plus one 7th grader whose mom wasn't ready to 'send him down the hill' for junior high school). BEST school experience of my life. But other than that, it's slim pickings for good experiences.
So are you doing more in the Spanish position at the small and dying school, for while it exists?
When you first mentioned the money, I had one thought, but then when you described your current and horrible-sounding contract, I thought purely for finances you'd be better off taking the new job.
But I wouldn't take it JUST for money. Teachers who are burned out in their subjects (or with a couple of their students like my 5th and 6th grade teacher), who are just waiting it out for retirement, or who have just taken jobs b/c of better money are better off being elsewhere. Or rather, the students are better off with the teachers being elsewhere.
So if you'd hate the job and only took it for the money, dont' do it.
And lastly, DH has been called out of the blue for jobs before. And it's a very shocking feeling! I think that deep down we all can't quite believe that we're good enough for someone to want us for a job we haven't applied for, and it can cause more difficult feelings that simply getting a call for an interview for a job you applied for. So maybe that's behind your ambivalence, that you can't believe you're good enough for a district to just flat out WANT you to teach there. And I'd say, unless the hiring people have lost their minds or want their Math program to fail, that they think you ARE worth it, and they do want you and are willing to pay a nicer wage for you.
