Aponie

The greatest joy of being a school principal is that no two days are alike. The greatest challenge of being a school principal is..... that no two days are alike.  Each morning I look at my Friday forecast. While the staff has a Friday forecast with highlights of what they need to get done on the Friday forecast, mine is filled with all the stuff that I didn’t type for the entire staff. I have a fabulous color coordinated to do list each day, and a neatly organized desk each morning. I set about my day, each day, with goals for the day. Rarely does my day go as expected. Rarely is anything on my to-do list done and rarely is my desk neat and organized after 10am.  I learned quickly as an assistant principal and as a principal to expect the unexpected. Large challenges present themselves every day. I also learned quickly as an assistant principal and as a principal that I cannot let those large challenges serve as roadblocks to derail the most important work in this building- which is the teaching and learning.

The last month as principal has been rough. The tragic loss of a faculty member, being in the news in an unkind light, parent pressure to make changes to our traffic and carline, and a school break in….are just a few of the major things I’ve been juggling this month. I had a principal colleague call me to “check on me” the other day. I told him that I couldn’t talk to him at that moment because I had some students reading to me. When I called that principal back his reaction was interesting. He stated that he was surprised I had folks in my office and that I should just close me door and get some work done. I really had had a lot on me lately. Huh? What? Shut my door and get some work done?

Have I had a lot to juggle? Yes. Have I had a lot of reflecting to do on our work here? Yes? But, please understand I am not complaining. So much good has happened because of the “bad things” that happened this last month.

Due to Miss Emma’s death, I have seen how much this little school means to our community. I know we all saw and felt the love from folks who fed us, sent cards, and sent flowers. But you could spend an entire day reading all the emails I received from community members who wanted to send condolences and wanted to let this staff know they were praying for us. While I would rather be in the dark about how much we are loved by this community, and still have Miss Emma with us, knowing that we are loved has been amazingly uplifting. Having lost my own father by the reckless behavior of another person, I was able to be there for Miss Emma’s family unlike many others having just walked through their shoes some 8 months ago.  I wish I could share with you some of the text messages I’ve received after our not so nice news report. Let me just say, we have some folks who more than “got our back”…in fact in many cases, I had to talk them off the ledge. It is so nice that what my father always said is true “Live your life so that if anyone says something bad about you, no one will believe it.” I’ve laughed so much about the burglary because I try hard to be the kind of principal who would never ask a teacher to do something that I wouldn’t do myself…..and because I left my door open (in order for service solutions to clean prior to Thanksgiving) my office is where the theft occurred. Now how many times have I begged that your classroom door be locked and closed at the end of the day?!?!?!   I was thrilled that, even though we were robbed, our safety measures (albeit the lack of my very own) worked. Because you all had your doors closed and locked, things were not nearly as bad as they could have been. Additionally, a sweet older neighbor of ours from the condos next door, replaced the Relay for Life money that was stolen. My heart smiled when I received that money (and I quickly deposited it rather than keeping it in my desk drawer!!!). He didn't need to do that, but he loves this place enough to do that for us.

So, so MUCH good from bad.  I could most absolutely focus on the bad. It is tempting to get sucked down that rabbit hole. It is so easy, so very easy to do that, but why would I when we have it so, so good. In the last few weeks whenever I was really upset or wanting to run down the “poor pitiful me” road, I would go into a classroom. I saw teaching. I saw learning. I saw students collaborating. I saw students creating. I saw students reading, I saw students writing. I heard our students sing. I saw students solve problems. I saw students run. I saw them create in art. I high fived students in the hallway. I ate lunch with students. One day as I was walking in the hallway on the way to take a phone call, a student stopped me and said, “Dr. Rose, can you spell aponie?” While I was in a hurry, I just couldn’t let her go without helping. I didn’t really understand the word so I asked her again and she repeated the same word-aponie. I asked her to read the sentence she was writing and she said, “Once aponie time.”  I missed the phone call, but I was able to help a child.

And this is what we are here for. The rest of the stuff is just a part of the journey. Never lose sight that we are here to help a child.