Year End Musings

The end of school year is almost upon us.  Just another day or two.  Backpacks have come home stuffed to the brim each day for the last week.  My daughter’s teacher is retiring so each day she brings home piles of scrap paper and other miscellaneous treasures.  I’m grateful for the scrap paper…except for the pieces with the tiny circles cut out of the very middle.  My youngest goes through so much paper drawing Thomas and all the other engines from the island of Sodor that I have started cutting the scrap paper in half so it will last a little longer.

Our school district is in trouble.  Music has been cut.  Physical Education has been cut.  Library has been cut.  But these are all things that are still required by the state.  I feel bad for the teachers -- that next year will have HUGE classes and have to add teaching these things into their all ready busy lives.  The district cut 149 teachers last week.  They did it based on seniority.  I’m not sure this is the best way.  But I suppose I feel that way, because our school is “young” and we are losing 14 teachers.  With another 3 that may or may not be there next year.  How do you take 14 teachers from one school? 

I hope the people that got our district in such trouble find themselves in jail.  For a good long time. 

I wish that I had a degree and could volunteer to teach PE for the kids next year. 

I’m grateful that my youngest child will be old enough for preschool next year so I will have more time to be helpful in the classrooms of my older children.  Part of me wonders, if it isn’t such a bad thing to have the budget cut if it gets parents more involved.  But having to cut 149 teachers and making classes bigger and not giving raises is very bad all around.

My oldest child remarked the other day that since summer is here, he doesn’t have to read everyday anymore.  I quickly informed him that he was mistaken.  My kids don’t love to read like I do.  I love to pick up a novel, or a book of essays and get lost in thought.  Lost in the imaginations of the authors, which always ends with me getting lost in my own imagination and thinking of stories of my own that I should type out and tell.

I look forward to the relaxed schedule of summer.  Perhaps there will be the occasional day of sleeping in.  Days spent in the pool, or by the sprinkler.  A vacation to Utah, long days at the beach and trips to see some of the Oregon sites we haven’t seen.  I imagine suppers of watermelon, hot dogs, corn on the cob and an ice cream cone to finish it off.  Or perhaps strawberry short cake.  I imagine laying in the grass, watching the sun go down and thinking as I watch the stars above.  I look forward to trips to the library, but I dread grocery shopping with three kids in tow.   

That’s all for now.  The end of my end of school thoughts.  Some days I look forward to it, and other days it worries me.  I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about though.