Moving Towards the Darkest Night

While Yule or the Winter Solstice is not quite upon us yet, I am really struck by how late in the morning the sun rises and how early it sets. Every year this miracle of nature happens and each year I am in wonder of it. Such long periods of darkness could be depressing I suppose. However, there are many things about these long nights that I love.

Since the sun doesn't rise until nearly 7:30, nearly anyone who wants can partake in the beauty of the sunrise. There is no need to arise by 4:00 or 4:30 AM, like in the summer to catch this display of intense oranges, pinks and purples and an ever lightening sky.

We get to close out the day a wee bit early by enjoying the sunset - a similar array of vibrancy in the western sky.

We have long cozy evenings in our homes with the ones we love.

P!nk - Glitter In The Air (GRAMMYs on CBS)

Music

So much gratitude for music in my life.

Spirit Sisters

This morning I'm reflecting on how blessed I am to be a part of a circle of women. We have gathered together for 18 years to share our lives, meditate, share ritual, sing, drum, dance, create beauty, cry, laugh, tell stories. 18 years is a wonderfully long time to journey together - across the differences in our ages, backgrounds bound by our companionship and our shared experience of spirituality. Wow, what a journey - wonder what the next 18 years will bring?

This group has inspired me in countless ways; most recently in writing a call of the directions for one of our rituals.

Welcome goddesses, spirits and energies of the East. Awaken in us the inspiration of each new day’s possibilities. Encourage us to listen for the messages in both your softly breezes and your ferocious winds. Remind us to honor our both intuition and intellect in all of its forms. Blessed Be

Welcome goddesses, spirits and energies of the South. Just as the sun is at its fullest at midday, inspire us to live to our fullness. Guide us to work with our inner fire to use it for good and not to burn in anger. Remind us to honor our passion in all of its forms. Blessed Be.

Welcome goddesses, spirits and energies of the West. As the sun sets in all of its glorious colors, remind us to bask in the beauty around us. Encourage us to find our own inner flow just as the waters of the earth flow from one place to another. Remind us to honor our dreams and journeys in all of their forms. Blessed Be

Welcome goddesses, spirits and energies of the North. During the darkness of night, invite us into quiet reflection. Encourage us to feel the ground beneath our feet and from it draw up our ability to ground and center. Remind us to honor our practical and logical selves in all of their forms. Blessed Be.

As we gather tonight may we each honor the goddess within each of us in our creativity, our strength, our dedication, our wisdom, our humor and our compassion. May we draw energy and inspiration from each other, hold gratitude for our time together and carry our collective wisdom out into our world. Blessed Be.

Full Days

After two full days of teaching, I am reminded to be so grateful to go the work I love. 24 individuals came together Thursday morning - 22 of them participants and 2 of us facilitators. Over the next two days, hard work, much discovery and warm laughter was shared. So wonderful to witness people stepping into their self-discoveries with grace and curiosity.

The Ship of My Life Sailing Through Softly Falling Snow

This quote from Maya Angelou spoke to me this morning.

The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.

Today, I am blessed! Yep, life has its many stresses. My "ship" has been bouncing around in stormy waters - the normal stuff of life - sick kids, bickering kids, the van needing repairs and new tires, too much to do and not enough time to do it in, the house is always messy, work is full and has its own set of both positive and negative stresses. In the craziness of juggling way too many balls at one time - and dropping a few accidentally along the way - it is easy to pass by gratitude. To let my heart and mind fill up with worry or problem-solving or planning or....

So, taking a few good deep breaths, I create space in my heart for gratitude - to really feel it swelling and scooting the worry and problem-solving aside. To create room to wonder at the softly falling snow beginning to sprinkle itself like powdered sugar on the ground. To be grateful for its beauty and the blanket of protection it puts over plants and the water it adds to the ground. To listen with child-like ears as my girls exclaim "Mom, its snowing!" To bask in the memories for a moment of Rowan, just learning to talk, declaring snow a "big mess." To stand on the front porch for just a minute and smell the snow - it has a unique cold smell. Thank you snow for reminding me to pause in my busy day to be in wonder for a little while.

I am blessed.

Recommitting to this Blogging Thing

This morning on Facebook a friend shared a link to a woman who intends to post a daily gratitude for each day in December. I loved that and thought "what a good idea" as I realized that I've kind of fallen away from my own gratitude practice. If you want to check it out, her blog is called "Bless Her Heart" and can be found at http://blessherheart.typepad.com/bless_her_heart/.

Then I decided to peek at my own blog - fall of 2007 was the last time I posted!! Wow, guess I'd kind of fallen away from this too - another sort of spiritual practice for me. I somehow got busy, help co-author a two-year spiritual journey curriculum, raised kids, canned food, taught lots of workshops and coached lots of folks - and neglected to take time for my own writing and blogging.

It was fun to wander through my blogging past today, reading old posts, seeing favorite pictures. So, with the inspiration of "Bless Her Heart" and getting reacquainted with my own blog, I will post more frequently than every 3 years. I'm excited!!

Sweat!

At Friday's UW Badger Volleyball game, our girls went out on the court at the end of the game to join the team in singing "Varsity." This is a tradition and our girls love to particpate. Typically, one fo the Volleyball Women will pick Gemma up and hold her during the singing and more often than not, someoen will throw an arm around Rowan's shoulders.

So, this week Gemma came back to find us after the song was over and excitedly declared, "Mom I have Brittney Dolgner's sweat on me!!" She was just tickled to have a Volleball player's sweat on her! (-:

Did I Mention????

Did I mention that I think Dog Parks are totally awesome places?!

Look at me - I'm having a great time!! I can run and run and run and there is a fence to keep me nice and safe. I come when I'm called - most of the time - my mom is really working on recall with me.

Last weekend I got to go on my first trip with my family to Washington Island to visit what everyone kept calling "grandma and grandpa." I decided that grandparents are very good things. This set loves English Setters - I guess they've had several of them over the years. So, they know all about my kind of dog!! I was able t work them for lots of treats!! I met their 13 year old English setter, Stormy. He wasn't totally thrilled with me, but he was nice to me.

The best part about the trip is that three separate times I saw pheasants. I went on still point and then waited until I was told I could put the birds up. Grandpa and Mama said I did great! Nobody shot at the pheasants, which is fine by me, since my family doesn't plan to hunt with me. It sure was fun though to find those birds and do my job.

Ok, this is Lance, signing off. It's time to choose on my peanut butter kong and take a nap.

Introducing Sir Lancelot Hunter

Yes, its been months since I've posted on our family blog - we've had a very full summer, including both kids' birthdays, our anniversary, the start of school, some big family saddness (death of a kind frined), but what do I post about in my first post back - OUR NEW BABY!

He's an adopted English Setter probably about 2-3 years old adopted through the amzing folks at Illinois Birddog Rescue and Midwest Canine Mutts - truly amazing people dedicated to a great quality of life for English Setters and English Pointers. Our boy's first rescue name was Hunter - he was rescued from a kill shelter in central KY. He was named again at his new rescue as Sir Lancelot, a fine name for an noble English Setter. We are choosing to call him Lance - he's also affectionately known as "The Boy" given that he's the only male in the household - oh, I take that back, apparently the hamster is male too, but it sure is hard to tell the gender of a dwarf hamster.

Of course this is certainly not the most elegant photo of this charming boy – it just cracks us up though. Do you think he’s comfortable here? (-: One of his favorite times of day is settling in on our bed while we read and watch a little TV. Lance still sleeps in his crate once lights are out, primarily to give our cats a break. They are much more likely to roam the house when they know he’s in his crate.

Suzanne, his forster mom, described Lance as being a sweet and noble boy. We think her description is 100% right on! Look at this proud and confident guy. He's very handsome too - though he still needs to put on some weight and we are anxious for his feathering to come in on his coat.

He’s doing wonderfully with other dogs too. Labor Day he joined many other dogs at the city’s first Dog Plunge at the city pool – a fundraiser for the police K9 unit. He loved the water and managed to wag his way in front of the TV cameras. He got prime footage on the 5:00, 6:00 and 10:00 news on Monday night. Silly us though we were so wrapped up in the festivities that we forgot to bring our camera. In addition to wading in the water he also figured out that he could go up to the vendors and work treats out of them.

Lance has also been swimming at the beach behind our house. Unlike his retriever buddies, he’s not interested in truly swimming and doesn’t like going above his belly in the water. Waves were an interesting thing to manage. We enjoy watching him attempt to leap over them or bite at them. Thank goodness he hasn't attempted to point them! He certainly loves to let us know when he sees squirrels, butterflies, bees and the neighborhood cats!!
He’s having fun with lots of new toys. He thinks sweet potato dog chews are very yummy!! And really nothing can beat a big ole’ soup bone!! He’s a fluffy toy destroyer – working the toy over until he’s extracted the squeaker and flung stuffing around. So, we’ve moved onto rubbery toys – the kong is a hit as is his “tree branch.” The best was his first interaction with his stuffed pheasant – wish we had that on video. He went on point, but couldn’t figure out why the darn thing wouldn’t fly! He kept circling it and looking at it from all sorts of different angles.

He loves his kids!! Both of our girls have their different ways that they each dote on him He walks with us to school in the mornings and would love to just run that playground with everyone – and oh my, all those ball toys the kids play with, how can any dog resist them!! He pays rapt attention to the happenings at both girls’ soccer practices too.

Our family will start doggie classes at Dog’s Best Friend in about three weeks. We think he’ll definitely be well settled and ready for this next level of learning by then. He’s done a great job of mastering “sit” this week and will do it pretty consistently indoors. We're working on good leash walking (which doesn't include pulling the person at the other end of the leash around the neighborhood!) and consistent potty outside. Hot dogs, chicken pieces and dog roll are very high motivators!! Now when we say "good boy" he salivates and looks for hot dogs. Yep, Pavlov could have used this boy to prove his theories.

Shining Solstice!!

I have finally landed at my desk after a whirlwind week with many projects still spread out before me and just a few minutes before everyone arrives at home. We're about to treat ourselves to a favorite summer time food - sweet corn - YUM in celebration of Summer Solstice.

We've had off and on thunder showers all day - a perfect transitional weather pattern to symbolize the transition of the seasons.

Shining Solstice to each of us as we hold the warmth of the summer sun in our hearts through the year through. May the sun's fire awaken in us our own bright ideas and passions and remind us to spread warm and care throughout our own "corners" of this amazing world.

Blessed Be!

In Other News...

Besides the excitement of kindergarten graduation, the days proceeding the last day of school were full beyond compare.

Last Saturday incuded Gemma's last soccer game of the season - a tournament between all the teams from her school. Rowan's last soccer game - and the last time their team would be coached by Eric who has been their coach since they were kindergarteners. Then, it was time to pull of those cleats, shin guards and uniforms and don concert attire. Gemma had her Yamaha music concert and Rowan was to be a guest performer. The festivities ended with a late lunch at Noodles & Company.

Kindergarten Graduation

Yes, it has actually happened - Gemma has graduated from kindergarten!


Here she is - getting on the school bus for the last time as a kindergarten. Thank you to our exceptionally wonderful bus driver, Neil and bus attendant, Sharon, who not only got Gemma to school each day with kindness, care and good humor, they are also the team that drove Rowan to school each morning when she was a Lapham student.




An empty stage, just before it was filled with kindergarten singers as each of the five kindergarten classes took their turns with their songs. Isn't the stage beautiful?



Here she is on stage with her class, singing Love is Like a Rainbow. The pictures of her with the other 75+ kindergarteners, all waring their motar boards turned out a bit too dark to post.


We have many pictures with Gemma and her friends after the ceremony. I chose this one though, because it just cracks me up - each are dressed so formally, you'd think they were going to prom and not kindergarten graduation.

Gemma with her teacher, Mrs. Dickerson - to whom we say "thank you" a thousand times over for her skill, compassion, immense understanding of young children and her dedication to the art of teaching.

When given the choice about where to go for dinner to celebrate, Gemma chose Perkins (-: She enjoyed a high carb supper of rainbow pancakes with bacon, some scary-looking blue beverage and a piece of French Silk pie!

Happy Graduation Day!!

I'll close with the first part of a song the kids all sang together at the ceremony, the tune is New Yor! New York!

Start spreading the news

We're leaving today-

We want to be a part of it - First Grade, First Grade!!

Incredible Timing

At lunch time today, I zipped over to Gemma's school to join her for lunch. It was her school's cookout after their Field Day events. As the "field" filled with parents, kids and staff, carrying full plates of hamburgers and othe picnic foods, many of us sprawled out on blankets, we became aware of a smell - not the pleasant smell of grilling hamburgers and veggie burgers. A smell that comes after a well eaten meal, if you get what I mean. Suddenly, it became clear to us all - the street work going on a block away had somehow disrupted a sewer pipe. YUCK! We all got treated to the smell of sewer while attempting to down our lunch. What timing!

How Do You Know When....

your nearly nine year old's underwear has gotten too small?

Well, here's how "we" know - she stops wear it and goes wild and free and doesn't tell anyone.

Over the past couple of weeks, both Jani and I have noticed that Rowan doesn't seem to have a lot of pairs of underwear in the laundry. We both share the laundry duty, so at first just attributed it to the assumption that Rowan's underwear had been in a load that we each had not personally done.

Friday, however, we were doing laundry together and one of us asked the other if we'd noticed that Rowan hadn't seemed to have many pairs of underwear in the laundry lately and we wondered if they'd been in other loads. Hmmm, it became crystal clear as we shared laundry notes, that neither of us had seen barely a single pair this past week.

Inquiring minds really want to know where the underwear is - is it being worn and stashed someplace? Is it not being worn?

Upon asking her, Rowan got very quiet and said nothing. A follow-up question, "Honey, have you not been wearing underwear?" A slight, guilty-appearing head nod. "Honey, you need to wear underwear, because...." Sunddenly it dawns on us, "Is your underwear not feeling good?" Big head nod - jackpot! "It's too tight" was the reply.

Curious as to why she didn't just tell us the undies didn't fit, she just said she didn't want to have to go shopping for underwear (she is very choosy, which I get, who likes uncomfortable underwear). A trip to Kohls yesterday afternoon yielded several pairs of nice cotton undies - Jockey and Bali - without cumbersome waistbands that have the nearly-nine year old girl seal of approval. Today, her bottom is covered by Bali - no more wild and free!!

Plays, Plays, Plays!!

All the third and fourth grade classrooms in Rowan's school are doing plays as the close of their literature block for the year. They've put on about five performaances, each classroom, throughout this week, to accomodate a variety of audiences, ranging from parents to peers to siblings.

Rowan's class performed two plays - one a chapter from a Beverly Cleary book, Henry and Ribsy. Rowan was cast as Mrs. Huggins, Henry's mom. Here she is below. Cute to see her interpretation of how Mrs. Huggins might look - in a bandana and apron.


The other play was a Tansanian fable. She had wanted to be cast as a villager in the marketplace in this play. However, the villager has a very small speaking part and her teacher (appropriately so in my opinion) gave her a larger speaking part, feeling that she could challenge herself with a larger part.

During set changes between the two plays, kids performed short pieces - joke telling, instrument playing, etc. Rowan and her buddy decided to cook up a little duet - New Orleans Jazz style by playing "When the Saints Go Marching In."

The two were so cute while they rehearsed at our house over the weekend. Each girl is far along einough in her musicanship to really contribute to their shared planning - it was like having a mini "garage" band in our living room. As you can see from the picture, Rowan is playing only right-handed. She dropped the full accompaniment, because it was confusing for her friend to manage the full accompaniment. It came off as a pretty simple piece, melogy alone for each instrument - just great though in figuring out how to duet play with two very different "voiced" instruments.

Tomorrow Rowan is a "guest" performer at Gemma's Yamaha piano concert tomorrw, playing a fun Bach piece.

Where are my IT and Payroll Departments?

This is my business logo and opening page for my website....

99.8% of the time I love being a samll business owner. I love the work that I do, it has purpose and meaning for me. It's powerful to support a group of people in their learning process and to see them embrace healthy and caring ways of being together and to see them realize that they are able to do it - they are not dependent on someone else! It's great to have colleages, also small business owners, who are my closest friends, who I trust implictedly to do the level of intense work that we do together. I love the diversity of people, groups and cultures I get to interact with routnienly and the diversity of skill sets that I need to have at the ready to do my work well.

I even like doing much of the infrastructure stuff that is required to keep things moving along and have gotten quite adept at doing graphic design for my handouts and other materials, managing software and getting it to do what I need it to do, managing billing and bookkeeping, etc.

However, there are those rare moments when I wish I worked for someone else - where I could turn over some of the infrastructure things. This past week or two has been one of those rare times.

My computer is acting funky. I've done what I can in dealing with the operating system. Now its time to call in the Geek World guys to help me out there and squeak some more time out of my computer.

The company that hosts my business website and controls my domain-driven email went bankrupt two weeks ago. Their services started going off-line left and right. My colleagues and I found out about their bankruptcy only throug a competing company attempting to win over our business. After many attempts to contact our current company, we've found out its true. So, we are each scrambling to move our websites before that service goes off-line, our sites are gone and our clients have no way of contacting us electronically. I've never moved a website before, so I have no knowledge base on which to draw. I suppose it might be easy in theory, but we're each finding lots of snags as we attempt to move our sites - interfacing with the domain holder, the old host and the new host - and all of these folks are the kings and queens of using the jargon of their trade. About Friday afternoon the realization hit me - I could slowly keep prodding through this process, learning as I went and get my site up. However, I'd be learning skill sets I'd likely not need again for a long time. A placed an email to someone lots more web savvy than me and asked if I could hire her to move the site. She's hitting lots of snags too, but at least knows how to untangle them!

Thus I've pieced together my IT department. (-:

Now, onto payroll.

One of my long-standing clients, a state agency, had not gotten me a check in a timely fashion. I give clients the standard 30 days post-invocing for pay me. 30 days came and went, no check, then 37 days, then I make contact with the agency - "gee we cannot find it, let's trace back the paper trail and see what we can figure out." 45 days have now passed, "I think we've found the problem." 50 days now pass and the check arrives happily in my mailbox - without interest for late payment figured in! Imagine, for a moment, those of you employed by someone else - how we just take for granted that our paychecks will be auto-deposited or placed into our hands on the right day and now imagine that employer being 20 days late in getting you your paycheck - this is the one less-than-joyful part of self-employement. Thank goodness for a wonderful internal ally at he agency who kept nipping at the heels of the fiscal agents to figure out where the check-cutting process had goteen caught.

So Monday (yesterday) morning arrived. I am thrilled to have gotten the payment issues worked out, have the website more underway, have a computer maintenance appointment scheduled for mid-week and plan on now focusing on my client work and hopefully getting caught up on time lost dealing with all of the above last week. HA!! We had no electricity for nearly 4 hours yesterday - a good portion of my office work time!! )-: A power pole had caught fire from a falty line in the next block - lots of drama with fire trucks, police vehicles to block the street and utility trucks, pulling out the old pole, putting in the new and restringing wire. I had enough charge in my cell to at least conduct phone business yesterday while I had no computer access (yes, I have a laptop, but my files were on my desktop).

I thought, if I worked for an organization, at least I'd have colleagues around to keep me company while everything was down. (-:

Finally when the power came back on, I had two hours for work until it was time to take the girls to the dentist.

Today, ahhhh, keeping my fingers crossed for uninterrupted work time. I've already gotten lots done and taking time to blog is my little "reward."

I'm back to being happy to run my own business again.....

Voice Messages

I get home from being with clients all day Wednesday to hear several voice messages...

VM #1 - no big deal - dealt with & deleted

VM #2 - dear friend - they had gotten a puppy over the weekend and we were over to their house, loving up the puppy. Puppy went for first vet appointment and they found out he has round worms - which can transfer to humans and are problematic for kids - vet advised that you all better call your doctor.

Oh joy! Luckly, I'm not too squeamish, so just add this to the long list of "to-dos" - call doctor.

VM #3 - the parent who runs Gemma's after school urban agriculture club - no club tomorrow - his kids are sick. They have chicken pox, despite having been vaccinated - and were at clubs during it turns out during their highly contageous period. So watch Gemma for signs of chicken pox, even if she's been vaccinated.

Lovely - two bizarre disease warnings right in a row.

Still two messages to go - I'm a bit curious to know what the next one will be.

VM #3 - Madison School Community Rec - a cultural arts class that each girl was going to take for three weeks this summer cancelled due to low enrollment. They have other things available for kids Rowan's age - not for Gemma though. What would we like to do?

Oh joy - a three week gap in the summer activities now appears on our calendar with other options filling up quickly.

One message left and I think, "please let this one have some positive closure on something."

VM #4 - another parent - the idea for sharing transportation to and from Girl Scouts for Gemma and her daughter sounds great - we're all square with that - see ya' Thursday.

HOORAY - at least I got positive closure on one of those messages.

Our Neighborhood Schools Dealt a Painful Blow

Our neighborhood is just reeling after Monday evening's school board meeting. Our state has been severely burdened with a school spending limit (QEO - qualified economic offer) made into law in the 1990's that is now really taking it's toll in the form of painful cuts to children's scrvices throughout the state. Our district has not remained unscathed - we've cut millions from the budget year after year. This year (07-08) requires another $7 million in cuts.

So I don't envy district officials and members of our board of education in their task of figuring out how to manage cuts of these magnitudes. And I've really had enough of politicians who think more about warring with others than about educating young children!!

Sadly, the cuts for this coming year have laid a disproportionate burden on our neighborhood's elementary schools, when there were options on the table which could have shared the impact of the cuts more equitably. My letter to the board post-decision speaks to my concerns for the well-being of our children, their teachers and our neighborhood.


Dear Members of the MMSD (Madison Metropolitan School District) Board of Ed,

I am writing to express my deep disappointment in Monday’s decision to consolidate Lapham and Marquette Elementary Schools into one K-5 school. While the district has referred to this move as a “consolidation,” it is in truth a school closing, as Marquette will now be closed to elementary-aged students. I fully acknowledge the incredible burden placed on the BOE of figure out how to cut millions of dollars from the district’s budget. Sadly, the decisions made Monday night will have laid a disproportionate burden on one segment of the district’s population – families and staff members in the Lapham-Marquette attendance area.

I am a long-term Wil-Mar Neighborhood resident, living in the neighborhood since 1988 and purchasing a home with my partner in 1992, a professional educator and small business owner (my partner is also an educator) and a parent to two daughters, one attending Lapham and the other currently at Marquette. I have a investment in the long-term health and well-being of central city neighborhoods and believe deeply that the re-opening of Lapham Elementary in the 1990s was instrumental to the revitalization of neighborhoods on the Isthmus. Therefore I am profoundly concerned that closing Marquette to elementary-aged students may have a destructive impact on the health of these same Isthmus neighborhoods.

As I assume you are aware, there are many challenges facing our central city neighborhoods these days - very high property values and property taxes as well as the influx of "mixed used buildings" with condos (most units not being adequately sized for families) - factors which potentially make the neighborhood less accessible for families with young children and families with lower incomes. A big draw for our families has been the school pair - vibrant, well-managed and exciting places to learn, geared to the developmental needs of children. Residents have found ways to stay in the neighborhood, despite the high cost of housing to keep our kids at Lapham-Marquette. Removing this pairing and consolidating the nearly 500 children into a small building I firmly believe removes a key attraction to young families.

I'm assuming you’re also aware that placing nearly 500 children in a building which at one point was said to have a capacity limit of about 300-350 means that children will enter the school in an over-crowded condition. If our enrollment increases at all in the next few years, we will be over-capacity and will need to seek yet another alternative for housing these kids. Again, placing children and teachers in a building so that in Year One of the consolidation we're nearly at (or at) capacity seems to be applying a “band-aide” to a problem that requires much longer-term solutions.

As I assume you are also aware, school mobility has a negative impact on children's learning. The children currently at Marquette will be expected to make a school change this coming fall - some of whom just moved to Marquette this past fall as incoming third graders and others who will be moving to Lapham for one year and then moving to O'Keefe the following year as middle schoolers. My older daughter, for example, will make three school transitions under the current plan by the time she enters middle school - once in the 2006-07 school year to transition from Lapham to Marquette as a third grader, next in the 2007-08 year to transition back to Lapham as a fourth grader and then in 2009-10 to transition to O'Keefe as a sixth grader. While I fully acknowledge that they will be moving with peers, the simple fact is that they will be moving three times - even with the best resources to support resiliency, these sorts of moves are extremely stressful for young children and confusing as well - things that are not assets to productive learning.

Another very large concern for me is the rapid time-table for consolidation. A decision of this magnitude that impacts the next school year was made in late April giving very little time for planning for a smooth transition and puts staff under incredible stress. Additionally, it seems that there is not clarity about the security of teaching positions amongst the staff at Marquette - many of us wonder if they will be able to keep their jobs or will be surplussed (yet another stressor for our students, not knowing who their teachers might be next year). We have been given a new principal - one who is not familiar with our neighborhoods, students, families and teachers and who will be returning after a leave of absence, who is now expected to help support this transition. Non-clarity of who will be working in the school, new leadership and a consolidation all targeted at one population at the same time are major detriments to our schools' resiliency and sustainability.

I understand that our current elementary schools with large student populations have assistant principals assigned to them. I am confused and concerned about why no such mention of an assistant principal has been made for the new consolidated elementary school, as it too will now be a large elementary school.

I understand the issues of needing to find a stable home for the affiliated programs housed at Brearly Street and support stability for these students and teachers. I believe some ideas about how to house these programs and keep Lapham and Marquette open as elementary schools have been (or will be) proposed for consideration. I would strongly hope that all board members will actively consider these proposals as they have the likelihood of taking the "higher ground" for the good of all of these children and young people and may provide a more true long-term solution.

Happy Beltane

Today is the First of May - May Day - Beltane!

It is the mid-point between Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice - the height of spring in the Solar Calendar. Beltane is the last of the three spring fertility - earth awakenings festivals.

Take some time today to help wake up the earth from Her slumber - plant something beautiful, make a May Basket for someone dear to you, dance a May Pole, notice what is blooming in your life (both literally and figuratively) and take time for joy.