Well, we made it through Day 8 of the Oklahoma Teacher Walkout. Our school district announced this afternoon that school will resume for our district tomorrow. This caused a huge uproar in our community because the teachers were not asked if they would be back in the classroom and the decision was made without their input.
Many teachers have declared that they’ll be calling in sick and going back up to the capitol to lobby for the money that they deserve. People are calling for parents to keep their kids home from school in support of the teachers. We’re hearing on social media that our school district is looking for close to 400 substitute teachers for tomorrow.
As a parent, this does not make me feel very confident about what the learning environment will be like at the schools tomorrow. It’s a very real concern to me if they’re not going to have adequate supervision in the schools. I don’t see how this situation is helping the students at all.
Many other school districts in the state will continue to be out of school tomorrow. Some of them have announced that they’ll be out through the end of the week. Our district has said that they’ll send 3-5 teachers from each school site to the capitol to continue to fight for the students in our district. I’m praying that we can get a quick and peaceful resolution to this crisis so that we can move forward as a community. As it is, it’s tearing us all apart.
Springtime Lunches
It was a beautiful day today so we went outside for lunch. It feels so good to sit out in the sun so I asked Emily to help me move the patio table out onto the lawn.
The only problem is that it was windy today and we kept losing our plates and cups. I’d rather have to deal with the wind than the summertime flies though!
It was really nice to just be able to sit outside and talk with the kids and find out what they’re thinking.
The Dentist
They mainly wanted to talk about their appointments at the dentist’s office later in the afternoon. Does anyone like the dentist?
Noah was pretty nervous about his appointment. I told him to just relax and open his mouth wide so that the dentist could see all of his teeth. Before the dentist even got into the room, this picture shows how cooperative Noah was being. Haha!
He did a really good job. And no cavities! No cavities for either kid.
A Special Dinner
Since the kids got a great report from the dentist, we went out to a special dinner. The kids would have liked it just as much if our “special dinner” was at Chick-Fil-A, but I took that option off the table early in the conversation. We ended up going to Hideaway Pizza.
We had a good dinner. I love their pizza. The kitchen had a miscommunication and they ended up making an extra cheese pizza for us. They brought it to us in a to-go box and let us take it home for free. That was a nice bonus!
Oklahoma Sunset
After we got home, I went out to the backyard to sit in the sunshine. The sun was going down and I got to watch the beautiful Oklahoma Sunset.
I also checked out my flowers. It’s warm now but another freeze is coming this weekend.
One nice thing about planting daffodils in January is that they’ll bloom later in the season. Most of my other daffodils are already done for the year, but these are still happy.
Even though it’s been tough to find things to do with the kids to make their Spring Break 2.0 fun and memorable, it’s really been worth it to spend this extra time with them. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about them and what they think about the world. And I hope they’ve learned a lot from me too.