For the past eight years, Miss Pam has been picking at least one of the kids up and driving them to kindergarten and first grade and then returning them safely home at the end of the day. That’s like one thousand four hundred forty days. For the last one thousand four hundred forty school days […]
first grade
The After School Struggle
I was at a birthday party with Number 7 for a girl in her class on Saturday, and I was sitting next to a mom I’ve never really spoken to. Since it’s the beginning of the school year, she asked me, as people often do in September, how Number 7 was liking school. I told […]
To My Kids’ Teachers
This year we have a kindergartener, first grader, second grader, fifth grader, sixth grader, and high school senior. We’ve got at least one kid in each school in the district. And each of those six kids is different. Some are strong students, some are not so strong. Some are well behaved, some are not so […]
This is going to be harder for me than it is for you.
I’ve been counting down the minutes until the kids go to school tomorrow. So have the girls. They are super excited. But Number 6 is fighting it every step of the way. Every morning he wakes up, asks how many more days there are until school starts, and then as soon as I tell him, […]
Education is all about customer service. And the service here kind of sucks.
Eighteen years ago I got a 4th grade teaching position in a fairly wealthy and extremely competitive school district in Fairfield County, CT. I had just moved back to Connecticut from Pennsylvania where I had been teaching for five years. After the principal offered me the job, I was sent to meet with the Assistant Superintendent. […]