I know that there are many who are waiting to hear more about some of the decisions made this past Thursday night. (The hiring of yet another person from Aurora, CO as Deputy Superintendent is just one. It’s a good time to have friends in high places.) There were a ton of them; I’m working through them right now.
But I’ve been busy these past couple of days with far more enjoyable stuff. For example, I heard yesterday that the boy has a beautiful little kindergarten girl who “like-likes” him! Being a typical boy, he remains unswayed by her charms.
What I wanted to write about this morning as the boy is curled up next to me (the “girls” are on a Girl Scout trip and we had a late boy’s night watching movies!), is the amazing dedication that I saw last night at the Challenger Elementary PTA’s Family Fun Night.
Picture this: it’s finally Friday, and you’re exhausted. It’s been a ridiculously long week of trying to put out fires, responding to staffing vacancies for jobs that no one seems to want, making sure that kids are safe and not, say, trying to flush themselves down a toilet for the fun of it, and on top of it all, trying to teach those students math, science, reading and writing so that a federal bureaucrat doesn’t cut your funding from zero to a fee that you have to pay.
What exactly would you want to do on a Friday night at six o’clock? Go home? Relax? Read or just forget about work for a while?
For me it would certainly be all of the above.
But last night, through the hard work of the Challenger Elementary PTA, many of our teachers, instructional assistants, and staff including Mrs. Carol Costello, Challenger’s principal, decided to put aside their own exhaustion and join the kids, families and friends on the field at Challenger for a family fun night of pizza, playing, and a movie under the stars.
There was pizza. There were Icees. There was music (Black Eyed Peas, “I’ve Got a Feeling“). There was sliding, swinging, running, jumping, and talking birds from Rio.
It was indeed a good night.
A good night for our entire community, coming together to talk and play. Kids, Parents, Teachers, Aides, Staff and Principal.
This is why I fight for our schools: Because they fight for us, all of us regardless of ability, every day and every night. And so I say thank you to our school, the administration, staff, teachers, aides, parents and kids.
Because of your commitment to educating every child, my son has a girl who is sweet on him. My son has a place where he is safe and welcomed. My son has a place where he and his dad can have a great night.
Thank you.
