12-21-2018

I want to thank everyone for the restaurant gift card. It will be put to good use over break!

Thanks to Jen S. for setting up the wonderful breakfast this morning.  Hopefully, you enjoy/enjoyed it, depending upon when you read this.

I'm looking forward to the talent show today.  Chris and Lynette worked extremely hard to get the acts ready for their shining moment on stage.

Thanks to Angela for allowing us to use her room for the chair massages.  Also, she led the HOPE Group in this excellent podcast.  Her students talk about a variety of topics.  Definitely worth a listen.
https://benjamin.bendist25.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=780978&type=d&pREC_ID=1180158

Jessica has led the Tiger Times staff in another spectacular, hard-hitting, investigative edition of their newspaper.   I particularly like the article in which Natan takes a controversial stance on running being good for you!

I appreciate the effort and hard work that Michelle and Kathy put into running the bookfair this winter.  Despite some obstacles, they, along with some key parent volunteers, raised $2,000.  I thank you and Buddy thanks you.

6th-grade Team put on their annual Sock Hop on Thursday which correlates a unit of study they are completing in ILAR right now.  The addition of the video took it to the next level.

Thanks to Alex and Colleen for organizing the student council winter dance Thursday night and to Marcia, Bill, and Lyn for chaperoning. Students were excited and busily decorating after school. Speaking of decorating, Alex and Colleen should also be recognized for all of the excitement this past week with the kids trying to win the student council dec-a-door contest and dressing into the theme days, they made the school environment electric!

Melissa and Matthew put on the largest attended concert of my tenure here at Benjamin Wednesday Night.  The place was packed and the performances brought the house down.  Special thanks to Todd, Heather, and April for helping out and obviously to Melissa and Matthew for the work they did with their students.

Thanks to Jenny Harvel for working to provide home-bound tutoring to one of our 8th-grade students. This is a student that needs the little extras and leads me to my next entry.

 The following is a re-post, something I wrote in the past (November 5, 2010) that I am reposting now. It is a post I wrote about the loss of my father, how it affected my life, and how it relates to the job all of you do at Benjamin every day.  I am doing this for two reasons:

1.  I keep a lot of my personal feelings close to my vest, but after being in my 5th year at Benjamin I feel comfortable in sharing part of what makes me ...me,...with you. Since it is the original post, there are references to EJH (my old school).  I want to be clear that after the time I have spent here, I can 100% say that my observations about teachers behaviors hold true here at Benjamin.
 2.  After sitting through the data meetings yesterday I think the theme coincides to some of our conversations on students that are affected by circumstances.

One last note, this is not a downer, even though I start by talking about my father's death, the title of the post is Making a Difference...something you do every day. After re-reading this, I also think my grammar and punctuation has improved over the last 8 years, at least a little bit!  😀 Have a great holiday and I hope you spend time relaxing with family and friends.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SI3X04STR4YAXUTNbVh1Xk-t1HxWaEjL/view?usp=sharing