Reach Out to Dropouts 2008

I must be honest and tell you that I was not looking forward to getting up at 6:00 in the morning on my day off. Not to mention, spending the day away from my sweet little family as they attended my Nephew Hunter's 7th Birthday Party without me. If you know me very well, you are fully aware that my weekends are devoted to spending time as a family, because work consumes our week.

Today was a day in our school district devoted to going to the homes of students that had dropped out of school. We had over 230 volunteers show up from different schools, communities and local businesses to help us in our effort. This event was very organized and in my opinion turned out to be a great success. We were divided up into teams and sent out into the community with packets of information along with the names and addresses of the students we were suppose to make contact with that had previously dropped out of school. We were placed on a team that consisted of a school administrator, secondary teacher, elementary teacher and community members. I was a little worried about our team at first when one generous team member spoke up and said, "I can drive, it might be a little tight but I don't mind". I politely asked, "what do you drive?" he quickly answered, "a Toyota Prius"...uh and he was serious! I told him I thought it would be in our best interest to just take 2 cars. On our way out the door, the Director of Student Services stopped me and asked me if I minded if the community newspaper followed along with our group. "No, the more the merrier" I said. So here we are, my team of 5 members and the paparazzi from the local paper going to knock on the doors of 6 kids to find out why they had not reported back to school this year. The sad part was...4 of ours were Seniors, one 9th grader and one 10th grader. I know you are asking yourself, what makes a Senior drop out of school? Out of 6 homes, we made contact and got information on 5 of these students by way of a parent, friend or concerned neighbor living next door. One of the homes was abandoned, but I took it upon myself to look in the mailbox and it looked as if they had not been gone long. I am hoping the efforts of the 230 volunteers who sacrificed their Saturday pays off. It is my belief that if we just bring 1 kid back to school that goes onto Graduate, then today was a HUGE success.

This is the group of administrators that I am blessed to work with on a daily basis. The man on the far right (holding the paper) is our new Principal and the other 6 of us are Assistant Principals. I am in the back center, looking like I just rolled out of bed and grabbed the nearest pony tail holder.


This is my dear friend Monelle that I worked with for 3 1/2 years before she moved on to become an Assistant Principal at another school in our district. She is a BLOG STALKER, so I wanted to put her on my blog and one of the sweetest people I know. I have begged her to start her own blog, but she has not given in to peer pressure just yet. For now, she will continue to stalk, stalk, stalk!

Today left me thankful for many things:

• Grateful that my parents valued and placed an importance on me getting a good education
• Thankful that we did not move around all the time and I was in a stable environment that allowed me to get a good education
• Good teachers that kept me engaged, involved and excited about learning
• Extracurricular activities that made me love school
• My education that has allowed me to be involved in the school system as a teacher, counselor and administrator
• A School District that believes in kids and wants them to be successful
• Being raised in a clean home that always had lights, food and water
• Good health that allowed me to participate in today's walk
• A beautiful day to be outside
• Always knowing my 5 basic needs would be met when I was in school
• Everyone who volunteered
• A good mind that is capable of learning more and more everyday
• Friendships with my co-workers
• Knowing I was safe and protected knocking on the doors of families I had never met
• Public schools

I am so glad that I participated in today's walk and I hope that the students homes that we went to realize that we were there because we care about them and want them to be successful in life.

Oh, one last thing...I posted a picture of Baby Peyton in the blog below.