Another year has passed.....

The last day of school has come and gone. With every year of teaching that I get under my belt, the last week of school becomes more and more routine. We always manage to successfully hold the kids captive for those last few days, doing our best to fill the school time hours with as many fun activities as we can manage. This year was no different. Each year holds its own little surprises; on Thursday of this week, as we were arranging the cafeteria for the huge 6th grade karaoke party, there was a major power outage that shut down the entire neighborhood. We were pretty sure we would be without power for the entire day, due to the severity of the problem, so the office was abuzz with plan B options for how to feed the student body with no power. But, I was abuzz with what to do with over 300 students who were supposed to keep their morning busy with bad singing and booty shaking. Shortly after the figurative "storm" of panicked activity, the lights miraculously came back on, lunch was prepared as planned, the karaoke party succeeded as planned, and the entire day was saved. Everything always works out in the end, this is true. That is a mantra that I need to remind myself of daily.

The sadness that did come with the last day of school included the reminder of all of our departing teachers. We will miss everyone dearly - this is a year of great turnover at Drake. A lot of teachers are moving away or moving on for one reason or another. My team member, Brooke, is leaving for Birmingham as soon as possible, and her departure will be especially difficult. Also, a member of our teaching family is fighting a brain tumor, which has many of us working through a veil of sadness. So, although the end of the year is always a welcome time, this year is accompanied with some struggles.

As you can tell by the tone of this post, I am absolutely exhausted. I will end now before I am accused of being a big ole Debbie Downer!

Love to all - Happy Summer!! - K