Hi, Nicole! Oh, I’m just waiting a few minutes – I’ve been asked to sit in on a review board. One of the National Honor Society students was caught at a party with some beer, and she’s challenging her suspension. We had to wait until one of her parents could get off work to be here.
Yeah, they can challenge it. I was on one of these boards a couple of years ago. One of the basketball players flunked his drug test. Weed. And, oh, he was challenging it big time! We had to wait until BOTH parents could get off work. He was mad – there was a possible scholarship at stake, and anyway it was his first offense, and he knew about others who got away with it, and why weren’t we going after them? … you know, every excuse in the book. We let him have his say, but when it came time to vote, the test results were clear, and the policy was clear, and he had signed it. He did not play basketball the rest of the season.
I heard later that his parents thanked the Athletic Director privately after it was all over. They had suspected that he was partying, but when they asked him about it, he denied it, of course, and they couldn’t prove anything. Maybe now they could get him into some kind of after-school program. And it turned out OK. Because he also ran track. He came back clean in the spring, set a couple of new school records, made the honor roll, and won a scholarship in track. He’s an athletic trainer now, works with kids who are trying to get to the Olympics. He turned out OK. I hope this little gal does, too.
It’s so hard to be a parent these days. You and I – we’ve got an advantage, because we can be home with our kids after school – unless we have a meeting like this one – but a lot of parents are working overtime, working weekends. And when both parents are working, someone’s gotta watch the kids. Grandma and Grampa are great with the little ones, but once the kids start being more independent, it gets hard. And some of these kids don’t HAVE Grandma and Grampa.
Sometimes you wonder what kind of parents they’ll turn out to be.
Oh, did you hear what happened this morning in Fred Wexford’s biology class? He’s doing that unit he does every spring with the ducklings. They incubate some eggs, and when they hatch, each student gets one to work with. It’s an instinct thing – the duckling thinks the first thing it sees is its mother. After a week, if it will follow the student down the length of the hall and back, the kid gets an A.
Well, that fire drill this morning came right when the kids were working with their ducklings! The kids picked them up and carried them outside. And when they got outside, the ducklings tried to flap their little wings, and some of the kids were startled and let them go, and they were down in the grass and walking over to the far side of the parking lot at the end of the building. Some of the ducklings were trying to fly, the kids were running, chasing them, trying to herd them across the parking lot. It was comical.
And then around the corner came the fire engine. Apparently someone didn’t tell the fire department it was just a drill – and that engine came screaming around the corner. Justin Bachmeyer was driving – do you remember him? He’s the only student in the history of Hamptonville High School who ever wrecked the driver’s ed car. Totaled it. And now he’s driving the fire truck.
Anyway, Justin thought it was a real fire; he came in right as the kids and the ducklings were getting ready to cross the parking lot. It all happened so fast. The kids and ducklings were moving THIS way, the fire engine flew past THAT way, and I thought, “Oh, no!”
Then I looked. … And the students had stopped … and the DUCKLINGS had stopped. And one by one, without a word, the kids reached down and picked up their ducklings. Even the ones that were flapping their wings – the kids figured out how to pick them up and hold them carefully, and they carried them across the parking lot to safety. They held on until we could go back in the building and put ‘em back where they’d be safe.
It’s a tough job, being a parent. You just do your best, learn from your mistakes, and have faith it will all work out. It usually does.
Looks like they’re getting ready to start. Take it easy, Nicole. Give the baby a hug from me.