Going Back to Cali...

Next week I will travel to Los Angeles, California for the America's Choice National Conference. Since our involvement, 11 years ago in this school reform the conference has proved to be a vital link to keep our momentum going in the foundational ideals of the design. It is a way for us to share our stellar work and to learn of the latest strategies and products available for our professional growth. I have been asked to present a "Virtual Tour" of our school and have chosen to do so by showcasing the incredible ways we are collaborating professionally and engaging all stakeholders using technology. As always you can keep up with what I'm learning since I'll be blogging the conference live and posting on Live From the Creek. This also happens to be the time I typically come up with the school theme for the upcoming year. What will the Hollywood hills inspire this time?????

My New Best Friend

For months my husband has been trying to convince me to get an iPhone. He jumped on the bandwagon right after they came out. I was a BlackBerry girl - and contrary to popular opinion - I am adverse to change. Really. He was ready to buy me one over a year ago and instead I opted for the BlackBerry Curve. Over the past year all my "crackberry" friends began dropping off and into an Apple world. Even though I don't relish change I am ususally ahead of most on the technology curve, not behind and around October I started noticing that my BB just wasn't cutting it. Over Winter Break this year I joyfully retired my BB and got the 3Gs!! Now I could kick myself repeatedly for EVER waiting this long. The iPhone is changing my life...literally! No more camera, iPod, phone all taking up valuable sapce in my purse, all my social networks are available at my fingertips, managing my calendar and email is a piece of cake, even my household grocery list has been revolutionized! I am thoroughly enjoying exploring all the possibilities and positively obsessed with finding great new apps. What are your favorites?

Random Streams of Consciousness and Kindness...Part 4

Last Saturday night I was startled by a phone call from our Standards Coach, Suzanne Shall, telling me that an apartment inside our attendance area was engulfed in flames. I immediately turned to the news to see a blazing fire destroying the homes of what I was sure belonged to a number of our families. We began to immediately try to make contact with the 3 faculty members who also live in the same apartments. Thankfully no one was hurt but 19 families lost everything. Six of those families have students who are currently attending our school. First thing Sunday morning we began researching which families lived in Building 13 and starting trying to make contact with them to find out how we could help. Shortly after the emails started coming from my incredible faculty and staff with offers of help and support. By the end of the day they were mobilized into a coordinated relief organization with our front desk receptionist, Julie Middleton, at the helm. On Monday items started pouring into the school for the families and our parents began asking how the could help. We were contacted by our Business Partners, Chick-fil-A and Chets Creek Church and by weeks end thousands of items had been made available for the families so that they could begin to rebuild their homes. It was an incredible reminder, yet again, of how the efforts of a united group can benefit others in extraordinary ways. I have been awed and humbled by the generosity of not only our Chets Creek faculty and staff but of the community as a whole.

Random Streams of Consciousness and Kindness Part 3...

Three days into our Winter Break and five days before Christmas my husband fell 10 ft. through our ceiling from the attic to the floor of our bedroom. He had to be transported by ambulance to our local hospital where they discovered his injuries included a compression fracture of one of the vertebrae in his back and two large, impassable, kidney stones that had become dislodged from his kidney on impact. By the time they were found they had caused an obstruction and his kidney was enlarged. They did vertebroplasty to seal the fractured bone, which worked perfectly. They did lithotripsy on the largest of the two stones and had to leave a stint in the ureter to keep it open until they can do lithotripsy again on the other stone this coming Monday. He was in the hospital up until the day before Christmas. He has been in physical therapy to work on rehabilitating his back almost daily and just this week they discovered he also broke one of his heels from the fall. He is getting a little better each day but still moves very slowly, requires a lot of assistance and is not able to drive. We feel very lucky as he could have been hurt so much worse.

Within minutes of the accident my families began to mobilize - I say families because I am fortunate enough to have more than one. I have my blood related one, my neighborly one and my school one. Your related family is required to love you, it certainly behoves your neighbors to like and get along with you but your colleagues are an entirely different matter. I know people who work in places where the people come and go each day, do their jobs, or not, and then go home. I do not work in one of those schools, and I am thankful everyday that I don't. At Chets Creek I am surrounded by a caring hard working group of people who love on each other and are there each and every time a family member is in need. I am experiencing the depth of their compassion as they have lifted me, my husband, my daughter and mother in law up with support and prayer.

Words will NEVER express the love and gratitude I have for each and every one of them. From the cards, texts, facebook messages, emails, visits and FOOD we have felt love and compassion that has touched us deeply and reminded us what life is really all about - family. I thank each of them for being a part of my family and for caring for us when we needed it most. The level of support shown during this difficult time has been paramount in helping us all heal. My blood related family counts my school family as one of our greatest blessings.

Random Streams of Conscientiousness and Kindness Continued...

Many of you have asked about the Seasons of Giving Projects that our classrooms participated in. Classrooms donated the proceeds from their holiday auctions, while others participated in can or supply drives. Many classes picked the same recipients. Here's a rundown of the many who were helped.

• Gift to the World Wildlife Fund



• Gift to a local Children's Charity



• Gift to the Ronald McDonald House



• Collection of items for BEAM (Beaches Emergency Assistance Ministry)



• Collection of items for the Humane Society



• Cards and Care Packages for a local Navy ship



• Collection of Cans for our School's Giving Tree



• Cards for the Troops



• Gift to the American Diabetes Association



• Crafts, Cookies and Storytime at the Jacksonville Children's Home



• Gifts/Clothing for children via the MaliVai Washington Kid's Foundation



• Collection of craft supplies for Crafts 4 The Cure



• Gift towards the purchase of a chickens, goat or cow for a family in Zinbabwe, Africa

Never have I seen a more generous offering to help those less fortuante and in need. Our students truly learned how to give back to their community. I am so very proud of them! No matter what holiday you celebrate I hope it is a beautiful one, full of fun, family and love.

Random Streams of Consciousness and Kindness

I've been really thinking about a lot of things recently. I am so grateful for my family, friends, and the best school full of people who care about each other and the children they serve. In the toughest of circumstances these people come through and they amaze me with their thoughtfulness and sincerity of mission. Here's just some of the kindness I've been witness to in just the past few weeks:

1 - One of our expected Learner Outcomes for students is that they learn to become Community Contributors and in this time of hardship for so many, our classrooms have elected to choose ways to give back to others during this season. In the past it has been tradition to hold a Holiday Auction in conjunction with our PTA in which all classes create a holiday decoration that is silently auctioned off with the proceeds given back to the classroom. This year we are offering a new twist on this old classic. Classrooms have discussed and chosen how they will participate in our new program the “Season of Giving Project”. Some classes still choose to participate in the Holiday Auction but instead donated their proceeds to a charitable cause. Other classes elected to complete a community service project (ex. making cards for our troops, donating time, etc…) or participated in a drive to collect items to donate (ex. food, clothing, or pet supplies for the animal shelter, etc…). You can't imagine the number of ways in which others have been helped through these gestures.

2 - A parent anonymously sent in $100 for a teacher to place in a needy student's lunch account. They also sent in a shopping gift card for the teacher to send to a family with the greatest need.

3 - 65 Thanksgiving baskets were assembled through the help of one of our Business Partners, Chets Creek Church, and distributed to our families in need.

4 - A colleague anonymously gave $100 to another colleague whose husband just lost his job. The receiving teacher wants whoever their angel is to know who touched and grateful they are. :)

5 - A colleague donated to a cause in the name of her team instead of participating in the team's annual gift exchange. The cause chosen benefits research for a condition a former colleague's child has been diagnosed with.

6 - To date over 200 cans of food and many, many toys have been donated by Chets Creek families to our Giving Tree for distributed to several families in need for the holidays.

7 - Our Behavior Interventionist has almost singlehandedly organized a community outreach event for tomorrow in our largest neighborhood with the greatest challenges. Teachers, staff and volunteers from Beach United Methodist Church will descend to help with home improvements and provide snacks, crafts and activities for our children.

This is a truly extraordinary place with incredibly kind and compassionate people. They touch lives that are forever changed for the better.

My Life As a Writer!

Growing up I NEVER thought of myself as a writer, especially not a good writer. My childhood friend Catherine was the writer - and exceptional at it! I was never confident about it and actually found it to be a painful experience. I wasn't always the best student. I was a major procrastinator and daydreamed way too much to ever actually get any thoughts down on paper.

Looking back I'm not even sure I knew how to write, at least not until high school when I landed in the classrooms of two very special English teachers, Mrs. Hedgepath's 9th grade Honors and Mrs. Gobbel's 12th grade AP. Mrs. Hedgepath taught me to write from the heart and express my feelings about the topic at hand. I loved her, her class and every writing assignment she gave me. Headed into that AP class in 12th grade I never, ever imagined I would pass the end exam - after all, you had to write a 5 paragraph essay on some obsure literary topic in 30 minutes or less. Hardly anybody ever passed the essay portion and I didn't even consider it a possibility. But, Mrs. Gobbel taught me to think critically, organize my thoughts and succinctly put it all down. She was confident in my ability, and guess what, I got the essay done and PASSED. I was one of only a few that year, out of group of peers I considered much more talented than me. It was HUGE for me.

So much of my job over the years has required me to write, a lot, and in many different ways. And even though I find myself complaining about the volume from time to time I actually really enjoy it and the thoughts and ideas flow fairly easily once I'm started. That is, until the last few weeks. I have had the worst case of writer's block EVER! I've started and stopped many blog posts, fought through the technical writing my job requires and basically avoided the creative process because it had truly become painful. It hasn't happened but a time or two in the last twenty years, and I have really resisted struggling through it this time, and it has really bothered me. Ignoring the issue was easy since everyone had very carefully avoided asking me why I wasn't writing until my mother in law, whom I adore :), asked me last week if I had just quit my weekly blog. Ugh - you gotta love those mothers in law for holding you accountable just when you need it the most.

So, I committed myself to pushing through it and getting back on the communication bandwagon again. Forgive me if its rough at first but there is a lot of stuff rattling around upstairs and it will take me some time to sort through it and get it all out. Being able to share through the written word is a huge part of who I am and I've missed the creative expression. When I'm writing I am focused and when I'm focused, I am productive. When I'm productive, WATCH OUT! Thank goodness I had two teachers along the way who brought my inner writer to life, writing has shaped who I've become, how I feel about myself and how I relate to every single part of life.

Even though this post has taken way longer than it should've, I'm already starting to feel better...