Our yearly auction is coming up and I know you are inundated right now with reminders and raffle tickets and invitations. Please know, we wouldn't have an auction unless we needed to. We are a public school. Public schools should be truly free. I wish we were funded so well that our class's every need and dream could be met without the support of our families and community. But that goal is not attainable right now – indeed, it seems a little farther away.
So I am so glad to be a part of a community who is willing to step up and provide for our needs and our dreams. As I have told many of you – I love my work. I love coming to school every day (truly.) I love working and playing with your kids. But that is because of your care and support of the school. You are so involved and committed to the success of your children and the success of the school - curriculum night, conferences, chaperoning, volunteering…the list goes on. And, when called upon, you also give what you can financially – to ensure that our class size stays small and that we have the materials we need to create curriculum from scratch.
It's not cheap to teach children well. It's not cheap to take care of a school building (especially in mud season). It's not cheap to go on field trips or have arts residencies. And it's certainly not cheap to hire and retain quality staff. But your volunteer efforts and financial support help to give your child a truly memorable elementary experience.
Every year, I give each Heron a necklace on the last day of school. We each share a moment from the year that we want the rest of the class to keep and remember for us. As we share that moment, each child listens while holding the bead of the necklace so that the bead contains each memory of each Heron. I still have my necklace from each class of Herons (and Elms.) That's a lot of memories — Shakespeare performances, muddy field trips to Caron park, puppet parades, trips down the Yangtze, operas, peep misadventures, and quiet moments of wonder looking at a lichen or sketching hoar frost on the creek.
I speak both as a parent and as a teacher: thank you for all that you do to make our school what it is. And thanks in advance for supporting the auction in every way you can – come, invite a friend, share the silent auction link with others, sell a few extra raffle tickets. We wouldn't ask if we didn't need to — we wish we didn't have to. Thank you.
The Rookery 
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