Doing the Best You Can

As most Americans, I've been watching the news from Haiti with sadness and concern. It's almost impossible to imagine a country so devastated and also with so few resources to cope with the losses.
On the flipside, I have been so heartened by the response of my students to the disaster! They got together the very next day to plan what they wanted to do to help and put their first stage of the plan into operation last night.
Ed and I work with the Key Club at our school. For those who might not know, Key Club is a high school branch of Kiwanis Clubs International, and the youth involved work to do service and benefit community charities, particularly those involving children. Our kids decided that phase one was to raise money for Haiti as quickly as possible. They started last night with a "Change War" Challenge. We had a home basketball game scheduled vs. St. Dominic, a conference rival and fellow Christian (Catholic) high school. The challenge went on during all three of the home games with results announced at each game interval (half times and between). We had a standing room only crowd show up and the fans were VERY generous. They gave their pocket change at the gate, concession stands, and when the cheer squad went up into the stands to the tune of over $700! Lutheran High won the challenge... but Haiti won the night! And the kids felt like it was possible to get others involved in making a difference! A good thing all the way around. (LHS did lose the varsity game, but that's not the best story of the night...) Next week, the faculty/student donation drive! I'll keep you posted!

Counting, crating, and closing...

This is the week after graduation at LHS. That means the faculty is busy with "end of the year stuff" to accomplish before summer can officially get underway. Today was busy with an interesting variety of things... first the exhilarating activity of the annual inventory. This is when I get to count my chairs, desks, and (believe it or not) the clock on my classroom wall... all for insurance purposes. I am sure you will all be relieved to know that I still have the same trashcans (yes, we count those too!) and clock with which I began the year. It's an all too familiar drill... and now I can report it is finished.

Next, I had to box up (oh, and COUNT them too) my books in my classroom and figure out what needs to be ordered for fall. I was pleased to be able to save my department a bit of cash as my books were in really good shape and even with shifting numbers, I will have plenty for fall. Next year all LHS students must complete 4 years (instead of 3) of English in order to graduate. Most do this already, but the state has made it mandatory and, thus, so have we. This means full classes for next year and I will teacher only senior level courses next year. So the crating was completed and the room was starting to look pretty "ship shape".

Finally, the exciting event... I put the wrap on the yearbook and shipped the final pages to the publisher at 6:06 pm tonight! I did my annual "dance of joy" in the hallway... and, as usual, no one was there to see it except Ed who is not as impressed with my hilarious gyrations as he once was. I did a repeat performance of it for Sydney when I arrived at home. She was much more appreciative of my efforts as she was sitting in her bathtub when I did it and decided to accompany my joyful whoops and crazy boogie with some serious splashing of her own. Gret was between us at the time and got nicely drenched as a result! MORE fun! So the yearbook is "put to bed" - adviser speak for "I am done editing this puppy, AT LAST!" One fact to note, we had a 93% hit rate... the highest ever! To those of you who are yearbook speak newbies, this means that 93% of our students have MORE than just their school portrait in the book tagged with their name in the caption. I am certain the format the staff chose is the reason for this because we did sort of a "journaling" approach to the YB this year. It's very cool and I am excited about what the reaction of the student body will be to it.

So a good day of "counting, crating, and closing" out the past school year... bring on some summer! (Now, if only this crazy rain we've been having would stop...)

A Big Day at LHS

For some of my readers this will seem a bit like a trip down nostalgia lane. Yesterday was graduation day at Lutheran High School. All morning the weather looked dismal and it looked like the kids' festivities would be swampy and miserable. However, about 2pm the skies magically cleared and the sun (and thus the humidity) came out. So by 3 pm it was gorgeous and until about 7:30pm it remained that way! All 95 kids had a grand day to celebrate. Parents were proud, teachers were proud, students were FREE! All in all, a good day! Below is a shot of them on their senior retreat last September. They are off to 39 different colleges and garnered over 1.7 million dollars in accepted scholarships. Not a bad way to end a school year! Hats off to you, class of 2008!

I Love a Parade!

Homecoming was lots of fun this year. The newest thing done was the first ever LHS Homecoming Parade! Now, mind you, this wasn't the longest parade you will ever see... but it was certainly well attended and everyone who came had fun! And, in spite of all the jokes made earlier in the week, as soon as the drum line started the march cadence, everyone stepped a little livelier and excitement was in the air! You have to love a parade!!!