Summer Break and taking one for the team

The Monday morning after graduation is when the final faculty meeting occurs. We say good-bye to those who are retiring or leaving the school. Faculty recognition awards and chairs are presented to those teachers who have served in an extraordinary capacity and the following years committee assignments are revealed. In the past, I have served a two-year elected stint on the professional development committee, one year of two-years on the faculty compensation committee and three or four years on the admissions committee. In addition, when I was serving as department chair, I served on the curriculum committee and department council. Next year, however, I am chairing the Annual Fair. For many years, it was headed by my wonderful colleague Mr. Chu, who left this past year for greener pastures. To give you an idea as to how much of a headache bring the point person for the fair is, I have been relieved of EVERY OTHER outside of classroom duty. All I have to do is the Annual Fair.

So, what is this Annual Fair? The fair takes place on the evening of third Friday of October. The clubs and groups of the Middle and Upper Schools organize booths and games for our Lower Schoolers (K-5). In talking with some of my students who were at one time Lower Schoolers themselves, they remember the Annual Fair being one of those things they greatly looked forward to. What's in it for the older students? Ahhh, you see, the fair operates on little red tickets. Lower School parents purchase both an entrance fee to the fair as well as wads of little red tickets. Every red ticket collected by a booth or game represents money in the operating budget of a groups account. So, months of September and October will be all Fair, all the time.

As I left school Monday afternoon, I felt my annual tinge of sadness at the school year being over. As a kid, I was that kid who cried when school was over in June because I loved school and I always found summer kind of boring. I still feel that now, but at least now summers are usually filled with things to do. So, stay tuned for some of my summer adventures. Can it be a year already that this blog has been in existence? The genesis of this blog was to provide family and friends to keep track of me during last years cross-country road trip, but now has taken on a life of its own.