Back to School Drama

1) Farewell:
We lost our VP today to an administrative position in the district office. She was awesome. It looks as if we may not get a replacement either. This is very bad news. We are in our 3rd year of program improvement. The extra work that we have to do at our site is difficult for 2 administrators. I don't know how 1 will be able to handle all of the work.
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2) Little Girl Lost:
Today was a great day tracking back on. The kids came back refreshed and so did the teachers. Everyone behaved well and seemed to have retained what we learned in the first trimester. We had a minimum day and it flew by. The bell rang to go home and I walked down the hall to a staff meeting. That is when all heck broke loose.

I got a phone call during the meeting. The secretary told me that one of my students was missing and that her mom was in the office. I did a quick walk around campus to look for her. Mom was beside herself. She was really trying to keep it together but it was hard, understandably. Mom doesn't speak English well. I was able to translate for her but I know that she felt extremely desperate and lost with the rest of the staff talking in our attempts to find her.

At this point, her dad was driving around the neighborhood looking for her. I was on the phone calling classmates to see if they had seen her and our secretary was calling the police. We were frantically trying to find a picture of her to give to the police. The little girl was absent on our picture day and we had no photo of her. As it so happened, I had a class picture taken today in the morning to send to a pen pal. Thank goodness!!! I ran to the class to get it for a description of what she was wearing.

About 1 hour after she was missing, I was able to get a hold of one of a mom from my class. She said that the little girl was at her house playing. She was walking home her daughter and asked the little girl where her folks were. The little girl said that they would not be there until 3. The mom didn't want this girl left onthe playground alone so she tried walking her to her house. When no one was at her house, she took her to her home. She said that she was going to walk her back to school at 3:00 to find her mom.

I ran to find mom. When I told her that her daughter was safe she practically fell apart. We rounded up her husband and drove to pick up her daughter. We didn't have to drive far. The mom who took her home was halfway to the school at this point. The little girl who had been lost had no clue as to why everyone was acting crazy. I am sure that she is going to get a BIG lecture (y unas nalgadas!)today about staying put and not leaving with people. The mom who took the girl home was very apologetic. She felt badly that the other mom had been worried for so long but she didn't feel right letting her stay alone on the playground.

WHEW! What a day. I am exhausted. Thank goodness for a happy ending.