Today's Fire Drill

Ever wonder what happens when a 5 year old decides to explore his/her curiosity? Today we had an excellent example of exactly what can happen.

Let me give you a little background. As teachers we practice how to evacuate the school when the fire alarm goes off, how to go from the classroom to the library, computer lab, lunchroom, office, bathroom, etc. We teach how we want them to sharpen pencils, put books away, let us know if they are having hot or cold lunch, the proper way to hold scissors, etc. We have to date neglected to teach about the use of one little thing. The function of that little thing has been on the mind of one of our young students since the first day of school. The thoughts running through the active little mind might have been, "I wonder why no one ever uses those." Well, today that student decided to use the experimental process to learn what that one little thing could do. I'm sure the thought was, "It has to be cool there are a bunch of them all over the school." So this young innocent mind called for the little hand to reach up, grab the handle and pull down. I can only imagine the jump this little heart made when the alarms started to sound. Only to be confronted with the horrible fear of being responsible for those big trucks showing up, everyone leaving the school, the adults counting people, and of course that horrible sound that would not stop. Yes, we had an unscheduled fire drill today. It was actually good timing, we needed to do a drill, and now we have a student who learned a lesson that will never be forgotten. Those little red and white squares with the handles that say PULL are going to cause a lot of noise and make a bunch of big trucks with big men come visit the school.

I love the experimental process. Watching the students take charge of their own learning and try different things in order to better understand the world around them is what really keeps me going.

The Day the Lights Were Out in Hurricane

What an exciting time it is when the lights are out. It is good to have those experiences every once in a while because we learn things. For example, some schools learned that letting the students into the school and try to use the hallways with teacher supervision didn't end with positive results.

I know it was cold yesterday but the teachers were scrambling using cell phones for light (a lesson learned. . .BUY flashlights) trying to work out a plan C (most if not all teachers regularly have a plan B already in place but often it required the use of electricity to complete the preparation) which would be beneficial to all of the students yet not require the electricity we take for granted.

I appreciate all of the parents that stayed to help the teachers once we were in the school and all of you who stayed with the children outside before school. It is comforting for the children to have you around when things are as unusual as a long power outage.

I want to let you know what happened once we started school. As the principal it was great to see. We are fortunate to only have 3 classrooms without windows to the outside. Those three classes had moved to double up with other classes or moved into a classroom used for special services. I went to every classroom before the lights came on. I was excited to see that everything was running as normal. All students who work with the special education teacher were there, every classroom was teaching reading, writing (mostly K-3rd grades), and math (4th-5th grades), students were complaining that they weren't allowed to just play, and this was something I was happy they were disappointed in. We have excellent teachers that are dedicated to the education of your children and the power outage was a great opportunity for that to be demonstrated.

Links to Hair Cut

Here is the link to the story in the Hurricane Times, and what aired on KCSG Wednesday night. I want to thank them for covering the story. I also want to thank Carl Lemar from KONY and Canyon Media for all they do for the great kids here in Hurricane.

Hurricane Times http://67.59.159.202/article.cfm?articleID=18229
KCSG http://www.kcsg.com/36348939.html

Thanks again to all the students, parents, and staff for donating to such a worthy cause.

Now We Have Really Done It!!!!!

With the help of the teachers and the PTO we made our goal of $750.00. Check back after Wednesday to see the pictures of the whole ordeal.

My wife is a little sad that I will be bald for our Christmas pictures but. . . Well what can I say.

Congratulations!!! This is a great organization that helps many children in our school.

We Reached Our Goal!!!!

We did it!!! We have collected $325.00 for KONY's Coins for Kids. I now have to wear my pajamas to school next week.

With today's count we are only $425 away from the goal which will require me to get that bad haircut. That sounds like a lot but if we look at it from the standpoint of everyone pitching in. We only need everyone to donate $1.

I hope you make it.

Only $0.09 Away

Well we have adjusted our goal. Our new target for my pajama day is $300 and my very close haircut is $750. I am very excited to report that we are only $0.09 per student away from reaching the always funny principal in pajamas goal, and only $1.15 per student away from the embarrassing (I don’t think I will look good bald) haircut.
Keep bringing in those donations and I’ll continue to get more nervous.

Coins for Kids update 12/09/08

I am excited to see the dedication the students have for each other. I know this is a tough year, yet the students are still able to continue to raise money for the Coins for Kids foundation.

As of 12:30pm today we have a total of $194.50. We are now just $305.50 away from me having to wear my pajamas to school, and $1,305.50 from getting that haircut right before all of the Christmas pictures.

Keep collecting and I'll keep getting nervous.