Skip to main content

Sabbatical

I haven't talked about it that much, but for about five months there I wasn't working and I had pretty much convinced myself that I didn't ever want to go back to work again. I was enjoying being caught up with the housework (mostly), cooking dinners, packing lunches, grocery shopping, having enough time to write and keep up with social media. Much of that may sound dreary, but after years of working and trying to juggle those things I found it delightfully restful.

On the other hand, I spent altogether too much time sitting in a comfy chair and not enough time interacting with real people. I may have done the couch potato thing a bit too much.

Being the stay-at-home mom for the first time in my life was a wonderful experience. I probably could have done more with it--volunteer work? exercise?--but it was what it was. And what it was, was temporary. I needed to get back to work. I never really stopped looking for jobs, and one day a job turned up. Just like that.

I'm fearful of over-sharing because I don't want to jinx it. So I'll just say I'm back working with kids again in a wonderful place. I went back to work March 1st and I've been sick pretty much since March 4th. That's what working with kids does to you. Hopefully my immune system will shape up in the near future.

I promised myself I would go to yesterday's Board of Education candidate event put on by the League of Women Voters, and then do a write-up. Instead, I was asleep in an armchair. Apparently my plans for yesterday were reading, sleeping, and drinking tons of fluids. You have to seize those sick days when they present themselves, I guess.

All of this is to say I missed the event. I am going to watch a rebroadcast and write it up in the near future. In the meantime, here are two pieces about hcpss worth reading:

"My Questions for the Howard County Board of Education", Tom Coale, HoCo Rising.

"Howard school board member defends use of staff email addresses for fundraising" , Lisa Philip, Howard County Times.

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...