Year 18, day 1.

Just as expected, our district's convocation featured a speaker from afar. This time we heard from Rafe Esquith. He talked about his fifth grade classroom and how he creates not only excellent learners but also model citizens. Best of all, Rafe brought some of his students, the Hobart Shakespeareans. Like previous speakers, Rafe has been honored by the Disney teacher of the year program and Oprah. Guess we can watch for teachers on Oprah to see who we'll be hearing from next year!

Predictably, our superintendent did NOT fly onto the stage.

After lunch, our faculty was back on our campus to meet our new staff members and to celebrate being named a RECOGNIZED school!

Celebratory petit fours with our school logo

Our super acknowledged that it's difficult for a 5A high school to achieve "recognized" status, and he was beyond proud to announce that our district as a whole is recognized this year. The whole school rating system can be misleading, but it is nice to bask in this attention for a day or two!

It was good to catch up with a bunch of my school friends today, but I'm still in denial that summer's over. (Seriously. I have to keep reminding myself. D'oh!) I'm hoping that by Aug. 25, I'll be ready to go for year number 18!